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UNIVERSITY  OF  ca.l:?c:^, 

AT   LOS  ANGELES 


dDlamibmi  |uss  Btm 


ENGLISH  CLASSICS 


7/^/ 


STATE  HWW'^^^^^^"'-' 

Los  Ai'gelei  Cat. 


BURKE 


E.  J.  PAYNE 


n. 


HonUon 

HENRY     FROWDE 


OXFOBD     UKTIVEESITY     PRESS     VTABEHOUSE 
AMEN    CORNER 


BURKE 

SELECT    WORKS 

EDITED 

IVITH    INTRODUCTION   AND    NOTES 
BY 

E.  J.  PAYNE,  M.A. 

OF   Lincoln's   inn,    barrister -at -law, 

AND      FELLOW     OF      UNIVERSITY     COLLEGE,     OXFORD 

VOL.   II 

REFLECTIONS    ON    THE    REVOLUTION    IN    FRANCE 


AT   THE   CLARENDON    PRESS 
MDCCCLXXXIII 

\_All  rights  reserved^ 


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Los  A»ge)es,  Cal.  V » Z- 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  famous  letter  or  pamphlet  contained  in  this  volume 
represents  the  workings  of  an  extraordinary  mind  at  an  extraor- 
dinary crisis :  and  can  therefore  be  compared  with  few  things  that 
have  ever  been  spoken  or  written.     Composed  in  a  literary  age, 
it  scarcely  belongs  to  literature ;  yet  it  is  one  of  the  greatest  of 
literary  masterpieces.     It  embodies  nothing  of  history  save  frag- 
ments which  have  mostly  lost  their  interest,  yet  no  book  in  the 
world   has   more   historical   significance.     It   scorns   and   defies 
philosophy,  but  it  discloses  a  compact  and  unique  system  of  its 
own.     It  tramples  on  logic,  yet  carries  home  to  the  most  logical 
reader  a  conviction  that  its  ill-reasoning  is  substantially  correct. 
No  one  would  think  of  agreeing  with  it  in  the  mass,  yet  there 
are  parts  to  which  every  candid  mind  will  assent.     Its  many  true 
and  wise  sayings  are  mixed  up  with  extravagant  and  barefaced 
sophistry :    its  argument,  with  every  semblance   of  legal   exact- 
ness, is  disturbed  by  hasty  gusts  of  anger,  and  broken  by  chasms 
which  yawn  in  the  face  of  the  least  observant  reader.     It  is 
»       an  intellectual  puzzle,  not  too  abstruse  "for  solution :  and  hence 
^  >^   few  books  are  better  adapted  to  stimulate  the  attention   and 
J     judgment,  and  to  generate  the  invaluable  habit  of  mental  vigilance. 
^    To  discover  its  defects  is  easy  enough.     No  book  in  the  world 
""-    yields  itself  an  easier  prey  to  hostile  criticism:  there  are  thousands 
I      of  school-boys,  '  with  liberal  notions  under  their  caps,'  to  whom 
^J     the  greatest  intellect  of  our  nation  since  Milton  ^,  represented  by 
the  best  known  parts  of  the  present  work,  might  well  seem  little 
better  than  a  fool.     After  a  time,  this   impression  disappears; 
eloquence  and  deep  conviction  have  done  their  work,  and  the 
wisdom  of  a  few  pages,  mostly  dealing  in  generalities,  is  con- 
structively extended  to  the  whole.    But  the  reader  now  vacillates 
again:  and  this  perpetual  alternation  of  judgment  on  the  part  of 
a  reader  not  thoroughly  in  earnest  constitutes  a  main  part  of  that 
fascination  which   Burke   universally  exercises.     It  is  like   the 

'  So  Macaulay  has  styled  Burke. 


VI  INTRODUCTION. 

fascination  of  jugglery:  now  you  believe  your  eyes,  now  you 
distrust  them :  the  brilliancy  of  the  spectacle  first  dazzles,  and 
then  satisfies :  and  you  care  little  for  what  lies  behind.  This  is 
what  the  author  intended :  the  critical  faculty  is  disarmed,  the 
imagination  is  enthralled. 

What  did  Burke  propose  to  himself  when  he  sat  down  to  write 
this  book  ?  The  letter  to  Dupont  is  obviously  a  mere  peg  upon 
which  to  hang  his  argument :  the  book  is  written  for  the  British 
public.  He  believed  himself  to  foresee  whither  the  revolu- 
tionary movement  in  France  was  tending :  he  saw  one  party  in 
England  regarding  it  with  favour,  the  other  with  indifference: 
he  saw  clear  revolutionary  tendencies  on  all  sides  among  the 
people :  and  not  a  single  arm  was  as  yet  raised  to  avert  the 
impending  catastrophe.  Burke  aimed  at  recalling  the  English 
nation  to  its  ancient  principles,  and  at  showing  the  folly  and 
imprudence  of  the  French  political  movement.  Burke's  in- 
dependence led  him  even  to  the  extent  of  revolting  from  his 
own  party.  The  great  historical  Whig  party,  the  party  of 
Somers,  of  Walpole,  and  of  Chatham,  was  slowly  passing 
through  a  painful  transformation,  which  many  observers  mistook 
for  dissolution.  Burke  found  himself  constrained  to  desert  it, 
and  that  upon  an  occasion  which  afforded  an  opportunity  of 
rendering  it  material  support.  From  that  time  forward  he  be- 
came a  marked  man.  Even  for  Burke  the  act  of  thinking  for 
himself  was  stigmatised  as  a  crime.  While  the  events  of  the 
French  Revolution  commended  themselves  to  the  leaders  of 
his  party,  he  ought  not  to  have  allowed  it  to  be  seen  that  they 
aroused  in  him  nothing  but  anger  and  scorn ;  nor  ought  he  to 
have  appealed  to  the  nation  at  large  to  support  him  in  his  oppo- 
sition. Such  an  appeal  to  the  general  public  was  characteristic 
of  definite  change  of  allegiance.  Hence  the  obloquy  which  over- 
whelmed the  last  years  of  his  life,  raised  by  those  who  had  been 
his  associates  during  a  career  of  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Hence 
his  counter-denunciation  of  them  as  *  New  Whigs,'  as  renegades 
from  the  principles  of  the  English  Revolution,  by  virtue  of  the 
countenance  they  gave  to  the  political  changes  which  were  taking 
place  in  France. 

Are  Burke's  opinions  in  the  present  work  consistent  with  those 
contained  in  the  first  volume  ?  Notwithstanding  that  funda- 
mental unity  which  may  be  justly  claimed  for  Burke's  opinions. 


INTRODUCTION.  vli 

it  would  be  idle  to  deny  that  the  present  treatise,  like  his  sub- 
sequent writings,  contains,  on  comparison  with  his  earlier  ones, 
certain  very  great  discrepancies.  They  are,  however,  but  few ; 
they  are  obvious,  and  lie  upon  the  surface.  It  is  hard  for  those 
who  live  a  hundred  years  after  the  time  to  say  whether  such 
discrepancies  were  or  were  not  justifiable.  Scrutiny  will  discover 
that  they  turn  mainly  upon  words.  The  House  of  Lords,  for 
instance,  in  the  first  volume  of  these  Select  Works,  is  asserted  to 
be  a  form  of  popular  representation ;  in  the  present,  the  Peers 
are  said  to  hold  their  share  in  the  government  by  original  and 
indefeasible  right.  Twenty  years  before,  Burke  had  said  that 
the  tithes  were  merely  a  portion  of  the  taxation,  set  apart  by  the 
national  will  for  the  support  of  a  national  institution.  In  the 
present  work,  he  argues  that  Church  property  possesses  the 
qualities  of  private  property.  In  the  former  volume  it  is  asserted 
that  all  governments  depend  on  public  opinion :  in  the  present, 
Burke  urges  that  public  opinion  acts  within  much  narrower 
limits.  On  the  strength  of  such  differences,  it  has  been  supposed 
that  Burke  had  now  either  completely  abandoned  the  political 
principles  which  had  guided  him  through  a  career  of  twenty-five 
years,  or  else  that  he  really  was,  what  a  Tory  writer  has  called 
him,  *  the  most  double-minded  man  that  ever  lived.'  But  a  man 
who  is  not  thus  far  double-minded  can  never  be  a  politician, 
though  he  may  be  a  hero  and  a  martyr.  Abstract  truths,  when 
embodied  in  the  form  of  popular  opinion,  sometimes  prove  to 
be  moral  falsehoods.  And  popular  opinion  in  the  majority  of 
cases  proves  to  be  a  deceptive  and  variable  force.  Institutions 
stand  or  fall  by  their  material  strength  and  cohesion ;  and  though 
these  are  by  no  means  unconnected  with  the  arguments  which 
are  advanced  for  or  against  them,  the  names  and  qualities  with 
which  they  are  invested  in  argument  are  altogether  a  secondary 
consideration.  The  position  of  the  Church,  for  instance,  or  the 
Peerage,  has  not  been  materially  influenced  by  either  way  of 
regarding  them.  They  have  stood,  as  they  continue  to  stand, 
because  they  are  connected  by  many  ties  which  are  strong, 
though  subtle  and  complicated,  with  the  national  being.  They 
stand,  in  some  degree,  because  it  is  probable  that  the  stronger 
half  of  the  nation  would  fight  for  them.  'National  taxation'  and 
'  private  property,'  '  descendible  right '  and  '  popular  representa- 
tion,' are,  in  point  of  fact,  little  more  than  ornamental  antitheses. 


Vlll  INTRODUCTION. 

It  is  not  to  such  obvious  discrepancies  that  we  owe  the  fact 
that  the  connexion  between  the  present  treatise  and  those  con- 
tained in  the  former  volume  is  less  easily  traced  by  points  of 
resemblance  than  by  points  of  contrast.  The  differencing  causes 
lie  deeper  and  spread  wider.  In  the  first  place,  Burke  in  the 
present  volume  is  appealing  to  a  larger  public.  He  is  appealing 
directly  to  the  whole  English  Nation,  and  indirectly  to  every 
citizen  of  the  civilised  world. 

In  his  early  denunciations  of  the  French  Revolution,  Burke 

V  stood  almost  alone.  At  first  sight  he  appeared  to  have  the  most 
cherished  of  English  traditions  against  him.  If  there  was  one 
word  which  for  a  century  had  been  sacred  to  Englishmen,  it 
was  the  word  Revolution.  Those  to  whom  it  was  an  offence 
were  almost  wholly  extinct :  and  a  hundred  years'  prescription 
had  sanctified  the  English  Revolution  even  in  the  eyes  of  the 
bitterest  adversaries  of  Whiggism.  The  King,  around  whom 
the  discontented  Whigs  and  the  remnant  of  the  Tories  had 
rallied,  was  himself  the  creature  of  the  Revolution.  Now  the 
party  of  Fox  recognised  a  lawful  relation  between  the  Revolution 
of  1688,  and  that  which  was  entering  daily  on  some  new  stage  of 
its  mighty  development  in  France.  There  was  really  but  little 
connexion  between  the  two.  Burke  never  said  a  truer  thing  than 
that  the  Revolution  of  1688  was  'a  revolution  not  made,  but 
prevented.'  The  vast  convulsions  of  1789  and  th€  following 
years  were  ill-understood  by  the  Foxite  Whigs.  Pent  in  their 
own  narrow  circle,  they  could  form  no  idea  of  a  pohtical  move- 
ment on  a  bigger  scale  than  a  coalition :  to  them  the  French 
Revolution  seemed  merely  an  ordinary  Whiggish  rearrangement 

'  of  affairs  which  would  soon  settle  down  into  their  places,  the  King, 
as  in  England,  accepting  a  position  subordinate  to  his  ministers. 
Nor  were  Pitt  and  his  party,  with  the  strength  of  Parliament 
and  the  nation  at  their  back,  disposed  to  censure  it.  There  was 
a  double  reason  for  favouring  it,  on  the  part  of  the  English 
Premier.  On  the  one  hand,  it  was  a  surprise  and  a  satisfaction 
to  see  the  terrible  monarchy  of  France  collapse  without  a  blow, 
and  England's  hereditary  foe  deprived,  to  all  appearance,  of  all 
power  of  injury  or  retaliation.  On  the  other,  Mr.  Pitt  conceived 
that  the  new  Government  would  naturally  be  favourable  to  those 
liberal  principles  of  commercial  intercourse  which  he  had  with 
so  much  difficulty  forced  on  the  old  one.    Neither  side  saw,  as 


INTR  OD  UCTION.  IX 

Burke  saw  it,  the  real  magnitude  of  the  political  movement  in 
France,  and  how  deep  and  extensive  were  the  interests  it 
involved.  Burke,  in  the  unfavourable  impression  which  he 
conceived  of  the  Revolution,  was  outside  of  both  parties.  He 
could  find  no  audience  in  the  House  of  Commons,  where  leading 
politicians  had  long  looked  askance  upon  him.  They  laughed, 
not  altogether  without  reason,  when  he  told  them  that  he  looked 
upon  France  as  'not  politically  existing.'  Discouraged  in  the 
atmosphere  of  Parliament,  Burke  resolved  to  appeal  to  the 
whole  nation.  He  had  in  his  portfolio  the  commencement  of 
a  letter  to  a  young  Frenchman  who  had  solicited  from  him  an 
expression  of  opinion,  and  this  letter  he  resolved  to  enlarge  and 
give  to  the  world.  He  thus  appealed  from  the  narrow  tribunal 
of  the  House  of  Commons  to  the  Nation  at  large.  It  was  the 
first  important  instance  of  the  recognition,  on  the  part  of  a  great 
statesman,  of  the  power  of  public  opinion  in  England  in  its 
modern  form.  Burke  here  addresses  his  arguments  to  a  much 
wider  public  than  of  old.  He  recognises,  what  is  now  obvious 
enough,  that  English  policy  rests  on  the  opinion  of  a  reasonable 
democracy. 

The  reader,  in  comparing  the  two  volumes,  will  notice  this 
difference  in  the  tribunal  to  which  the  appeal  is  made.  Public 
opinion  in  the  last  twenty  years  had  gone  through  rapid  changes. 
The  difference  between  the  condition  of  public  opinion  in  1770 
and  in  1790  was  greater  than  between  1790  and  1874.  In  1770 
it  was  necessary  to  rouse  it  into  life:  in  1790  it  was  already 
living,  watching,  and  speaking  for  itself.  The  immorality  of  the 
politicians  of  the  day  had  awakened  the  distrust  of  the  people : 
and  the  people  and  the  King  were  united  in  supporting  a  popular 
minister.  There  was  more  activity,  more  public  spirit,  and 
more  organisation.  In  England,  as  in  France,  communication 
with  the  capital  from  the  remotest  parts  of  the  kingdom  had 
become  frequent  and  regular.  London  had  in  1790  no  less 
than  fourteen  daily  newspapers ;  and  many  others  appeared  once 
or  twice  a  week.  No  one  can  look  over  the  files  of  these 
newspapers  without  perceiving  the  magnitude  of  the  space  which 
France  at  this  time  occupied  in  the  eye  of  the  English  world. 
The  rivalry  of  the  two  nations  was  already  at  its  height.  The 
Bourbon  kingdoms  summed  up,  for  the  Englishman,  the  idea 
of  foreign  Powers :  and  disturbances  in  France  told  on  England 


X  INTRODUCTION, 

•with  much  greater  effect  than  now.  In  England  there  pre- 
vailed a  deceptive  tranquillity,  Burke  and  many  others  knew  that 
the  England  of  1790  was  not  the  England  of  1770.  The  results 
of  the  American  War  were  slowly  convincing  people  that  some- 
thing more  was  possible  than  had  hitherto  been  practised  in 
modem  English  policy.  Democracy  had  grown  from  a  possibility 
into  a  power.  Whiggism,  as  a  principle,  had  long  been  distrusted 
and  discredited.  With  its  decline  had  begun  the  discredit  of 
all  that  it  had  idolised.  The  English  Constitution,  against  which 
in  1770  hardly  a  breath  had  been  raised,  was  in  the  succeeding 
twenty  years  exposed  to  general  ridicule.  Under  a  minister 
who  proclaimed  himself  a  Reformer,  the  newly  awakened  senti- 
ment for  political  change  was  extending  in  all  directions.  Seats 
in  Parliament  had  always  been  bought  and  sold;  but,  owing 
to  the  increased  wealth  of  the  community,  prices  had  now 
undergone  a  preposterous  advance  Five  thousand  pounds  was 
the  average  figure  at  which  a  wealthy  merchant  or  rising  lawyer 
had  to  purchase  his  seat  from  the  patron  of  a  borough.  The 
disgraceful  history  of  the  Coalition  made  people  call  for  reform 
in  the  Executive  as  well  as  the  Legislative.  Montesquieu  had 
said  that  England  must  perish  as  soon  as  the  Legislative  power 
became  more  corrupt  than  the  Executive ;  but  it  now  seemed 
as  if  both  branches  of  the  government  were  competing  in  a 
race  for  degradation.  Corrupt  as  the  Legislative  was  in  its 
making,  its  material,  drawn  from  the  body  of  the  nation,  and  not 
from  a  corps  of  professed  intriguers,  saved  it  from  the  moral 
disgrace  which  attended  the  Executive.  Many  were  in  favour 
of  restoring  soundness  to  the  Executive  as  a  preliminary  reform  ; 
and  many  were  the  schemes  proposed  for  effecting  it.  One  very 
shrewd  thinker,  who  sat  in  the  House,  proposed  an  annual 
Ministry,  chosen  by  lot.  Others  proposed  an  elective  Ministry  : 
others  wished  to  develop  the  House  of  Lords  into  something 
like  the  Grand  Council  of  Venice.  No  political  scheme  was  too 
absurd  to  lack  an  advocate.  Universal  suffrage,  annual  parlia- 
ments, and  electoral  districts  were  loudly  demanded,  and  Dukes 
were  counted  among  their  warmest  supporters.  The  people,  as 
in  the  times  of  Charles  I,  called  for  the  '  ancient  Saxon  con- 
stitution.' What  it  was,  and  what  right  they  had  to  it,  or  how 
it  was  to  be  adapted  to  modern  requirements,  they  did  not 
very  well  know,  but  the  lawyers  were  able  to  tell  them.     The 


INTR  OD  UCTION.  XI 

lawyers  demonstrated  how  greatly  the  liberties  of  the  nation 
had  fallen  off,  and  how  grossly  their  nature  was  misunderstood. 
They  proved  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  People  to  reclaim  them, 
and  that  no  obstacle  stood  in  the  way.  In  this  cry  many  Whigs 
and  Tories,  members  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  were  found 
to  join. 

This  liberal  movement  was  not  confined  to  England.  It  spread, 
in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  all  over  Europe,  even  to  St.  Peters- 
burg and  Constantinople.  In  England,  Reform  was  rather  a  cry 
than  a  political  movement;  but  in  France  and  Austria  it  was 
a  movement  as  well  as  a  cry.  In  the  latter  country,  indeed, 
the  Reform  was  supplied  before  the  demand,  and  the  Emperor 
Joseph  was  forced  by  an  ignorant  people  to  reverse  projects  in 
which  he  had  vainly  tried  to  precede  his  age.  But  the  demands 
abroad  were  for  organic  reforms,  such  as  had  long  been  effected 
in  England.  England,  after  the  reign  of  Charles  II,  is  a  com- 
pletely modern  nation ;  society  is  reorganised  on  the  basis  which 
still  subsists.  But  France  and  Germany  in  1789  were  still 
what  they  had  been  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  icy  fetters  which 
England  had  long  ago  broken  up  had  on  the  Continent  hardened 
until  nothing  would  break  them  up  but  a  convulsion.  In  France 
this  had  been  demonstrated  by  the  failures  of  Turgot.  The 
body  of  oppressive  interests  which  time  and  usage  had  legalised 
was  too  strong  to  give  way  to  a  moderate  pressure.  A  convulsion, 
a  mighty  shock,  a  disturbance  of  normal  forces,  was  necessary : 
and  the  French  people  had  long  been  collecting  themselves  for 
the  task.  Forty  years  a  Revolution  had  been  foreseen,  and  ten 
years  at  least  it  had  been  despaired  of.  But  it  came  at  last, 
and  came  imexpectedly ;  the  Revolution  shook  down  the 
feudalism  of  France,  and  the  great  general  of  the  Revolution 
trampled  to  dust  the  tottering  relics  of  it  in  the  rest  of  Western 
Europe.  Conspicuous  among  the  agencies  which  effected  it  was 
the  new  power  of  public  opinion,  which  wrought  an  obvious 
effect,  by  means  of  the  Gazettes  of  Paris,  throughout  the  western 
world.  Burke  saw  this,  and  to  public  opinion  he  appealed  against 
the  movement,  and  so  far  as  this  country  was  concerned, 
successfully.  It  was  he  whose  'shrilling  trumpet'  sounded  the 
first  alarm  of  the  twenty  years'  European  war  against  the  French 
Revolution. 

It  was  hard,  at  such  a  crisis,  to  sever  general  ideas  from  the 


XU  INTRODUCTION. 

immediate  occasion.  Burke  tells  us  less  about  the  French 
Revolution  than  about  English  thought  and  feeling  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Revolutions  in  general.  On  the  applicability  of  these 
general  views  to  the  occasion  of  their  enunciation,  it  is  not 
necessary  for  the  reader  to  form  any  definite  judgment.  Pro- 
perly speaking,  indeed,  the  question  depends  only  in  a  small 
degree  on  grounds  which  demand  or  justify  such  a  mode  of 
treatment.  To  condemn  all  Revolutions  is  monstrous.  To  say 
categorically  that  the  French  Revolution  was  absolutely  a  good 
thing  or  a  bad  thing  conveys  no  useful  idea.  Either  may  be  said 
W'ith  some  degree  of  truth,  but  neither  can  be  said  without 
qualifications  which  almost  neutralise  the  primary  thesis.  No 
student  of  history  by  this  time  needs  to  be  told  that  the  French 
Revolution  was,  in  a  more  or  less  extended  sense,  a  very  good 
thing.  Consequently,  the  student  is  not  advised  to  assent,  further 
than  is  necessary  to  gain  an  idea  of  Burke's  standpoint,  to  the 
summary  and  ignominious  condemnation  with  which  the  Revo- 
lution is  treated  by  Burke.(^  But  it  must  be  remembered  that 
whatever  may  have  been  its  good  side,  it  was  not  Burke's  busi-  , 
ness  to  exhibit  it."3No  one  was  better  qualified  than  Burke  to 
compose  an  apologetic  for  the  final  appeal  of  a  people  against 
tyranny:  but  nunc  non  erat  his  locus.  Burke's  business  was  not  to 
cool  the  pot,  but  to  make  it  boil :  to  raise  a  strong  counter-cry, 
and  make  the  most  of  the  bad  side  of  the  Revolution.  Burke 
appears  here  in  the  character  of  an  advocate  :  like  all  advocates, 
he  says  less  than  he  knows]  It  was  his  cue  to  represent  the 
Revolution  as  a  piece  of  voluntary  and  malicious  folly ;  he  could 
not  well  admit  that  it  was  the  result  of  deep-seated  and  irre- 
sistible causes.  Not  that  the  Revolution  could  not  have  been 
avoided — every  one  knew  that  it  might ;  but  it  could  only  have 
been  avoided  by  an  equally  sweeping  Revolution  from  above.  In 
default  of  this  there  came  to  pass  a  Revolution  from  below. 
Though  the  Revolution  brought  with  it  mistakes  in  policy, 
crimes,  and  injuries,  it  involved  no  more  of  each  than  the  fair 
average  of  human  affairs  will  allow,  if  we  consider  its  character 
and  magnitude ;  and  we  must  pay  less  than  usual  heed  to  Burke 
when  he  insists  that  these  were  produced  wholly  by  the  ignor- 
ance and  wickedness  of  the  Revolutionary  leaders.  The  suffierers 
in  a  large  measure  brought  them  on  themselves  by  ill-timed 
resistance  and  vacillating  counsels?!^ 


INTRODUCTION.  Xlil 

/  From  the  present  work  the  student  will  learn  little  of  the 
history  of  the  Revolution.  It  had  barely  begun  :  only  two  in- 
cidents of  importance,  the  capture  of  the  Bastille  and  the 
transportation  from  Versailles  to  Paris,  had  taken  place :  of  that 
coalition  of  hostile  elements  which  first  gave  the  Revolution 
force  and  self-consciousness,  there  was  as  yet  not  a  trace.  It 
was  not  only  in  its  beginnings,  but  even  these  beginnings  were 
imperfectly  understood.  School-boys  now  know  more  of  the 
facts  of  the  matter  than  was  known  to  Burke,  and  thanks  to 
the  pen  of  De  Tocqueville,  most  persons  of  moderate  literary 
pretensions  can  claim  a  closer  familiarity  with  its  fundamental 
nature.  Wherein,  then,  consists  the  value  of  the  book  ?  what 
are  the  merits  which  won  for  it  the  emphatic  commendation 
of  Dumont,  the  disciple  and  populariser  of  Bentham  —  that  it 
was  probably  the  '  salvation  of  Europe '  ?  How  came  this  viru- 
lent and  intemperate  attack  to  have  the  wide  and  beneficial 
effect  which  attended  it?  What  was  the  nature  of  its  potent 
magic,  which  disarmed  the  Revolutionists  of  England,  and  ex-  ^ 
orcised  from  the  thinking  classes  of  Europe  the  mischievous 
desire  of  political  change  ? 

It  was  obvious  that  the  movement  in  France  was  accompanied 
by  a  general  distrust  of  the  existing  framevvork  of  society.  Some- 
thing of  the  same  kind  was  prevalent  in  England  ;  but  it  belonged 
to  a  narrower  class,  with  narrower  motives  and  meaner  ends. 
From  his  earliest  years  Burke  had  been  familiar  with  the  idea  of  * 
a  nation  of  human  savages  rising  in  revolt  against  law,  religion, 
and  social  order,  and  he  believed  the  impulse  to  such  a  revolt  to ' 
exist  in  human  nature  as  a  specific  moral  disease.  The  thing  which  ' 
he  greatly  feared  now  seemed  to  have  come  suddenly  upon  him.  *» 
Burke  manifestly  erred  in  representing  such  an  element  as  the  sole 
aliment  and  motive  force  of  the  French  Revolution.     Distrust  of 
society  was  widely  disseminated  in  England,  though  less  widely 
than  Burke  believed,  and  far  less  widely  than  in  France ;  but 
Burke  had  no  means  of  verifying  his  bodings.    Jacobinism  had 
prevailed   in    France,  and  a  Revolution   had  followed  —  it  was 
coming  to  prevail  in  England,  and  a  Revolution  might  be  ex- 
pected.     England  had    in    France   the   highest  reputation  for 
political    progress,   liberty,   and   good   government.      England's 
liberty  was  bound  up  with  the  fact  of  her  having  passed  through 
a  Revolution,  which,  after  the  lapse  of  a  century,  was  considered 


XIV  INTRODUCTION. 

a  worthy  object  of  commemoration.  It  was  represented  in 
France  that  the  French  Revolution  was  proceeding  on  English 
principles.  It  was  further  understood  that  England  sympathised 
with  and  intended  to  benefit  by  the  broader  and  more  en- 
lightened Revolution  which  was  being  accomplished  in  France. 
This  Burke  takes  all  pains  to  refute.  He  shows  that  this  famous 
English  Revolution  was,  in  truth,  a  Revolution  not  made,  but 
.prevented.  He  aims  to  prove  by  conclusive  evidence  that 
English  policy,  though  not  averse  from  reform,  is  stubbornly  • 
opposed  to  revolution.  He  shows  that  the  main  body  of  the' 
British  nation,  from  its  historical  traditions,  from  the  opinions 
and  doctrines  transmitted  to  it  from  the  earliest  times,  from  its 
constitution  and  essence,  was  utterly  hostile  to  these  dangerous 
novelties,  and  bound  to  eschew  and  reprobate  them.  Though 
mainly  sound  and  homogeneous,  the  body  politic  had  rotten 
members,  and  it  is  the  utterances  of  these,  by  which  the 
intelligent  Frenchman  might  otherwise  be  pardonably  misled, 
that  Burke  in  the  first  instance  applies  himself  to  confute. 

The  earliest  title  of  the  work  (see  Notes,  p.  297)  indicates  that 
it  was  occasioned  proximately  not  by  the  events  in  France,  but 
by  events  of  much  less  importance  in  England.  Knowing  little 
of  Europe  in  general,  by  comparison  with  his  intimate  know- 
ledge of  England,  Burke  can  have  been  little  disposed  or  pre- 
pared to  rush  into  print,  in  the  midst  of  absorbing  state  business 
at  home,  with  a  general  discussion  of  the  changes  which  had 
taken  place  in  a  foreign  nation.  This  was  not  the  habit  of  the 
time.  In  our  day  a  man  must  be  able  to  sustain  an-  argument  on 
the  internal  politics  of  all  nations  of  the  earth:  in  that  day, 
Englishmen  chiefly  regarded  their  own  business.  Had  the  Revo- 
lution been  completely  isolated,  it_would  never  have  occupied 
Burke's  pen.  But  the  Revolutionists  had  aiders  and  abettors  on 
this  side  of  the  Channel,  and  they  openly  avowed  their  purpose 
of  bringing  about  a  catastrophe  similar  to  that  which  had  been 
brought  about  in  France.  Finally,  some  of  these  Enghsh 
'sympathisers'  were  persons  long  politically  hateful  to  Burke 
and  his  party.  Hence  that  strong  tincture  of  party  virulence 
which  is  perceptible  throughout  the  work.  Burke  writes  not  as  ■ 
a  Hallam — not  as  a  philosophical  critic  or  a  temperate  judge,  but 
in  his  accustomed  character  as  an  impassioned  advocate  and  an 
angry  debater.     Indeed  anything  like  a  reserved  and  observant 


INTR  OD  UCTION.  XV 

attitude,  on  the  part  of  his  countrymen,  irritates  him  to  fury. 
He  bitterly  attacks  all  who,  with  the  steady  temper  of  Addison's 
Fortius, 

'  Can  look  on  guilt,  rebellion,  fraud,  and  Caesar, 
In  the  calm  lights  of  mild  philosophy.' 

His  real  aim  is  less  to  attack  the  French  than  the  English  Revo- 
lutionists: not  so  much  to  asperse  Sieyes  and  Mirabeau,  as 
Dr.  Price  and  Lord  Stanhope. 

;  The  work,  then,  professes  to  be  a  general  statement,  con- 
'fessedly  hasty  and  fragmentary,  of  the  political  doctrines  and 
.sentiments  of  the  English  people.  It  was,  on  the  whole,  recog- 
nised as  true.  The  body  of  the  nation  agreed  in  this  fierce  and 
eloquent  denunciation.  The  Jacobins  steadily  went  down  in 
public  estimation  from  the  day  of  its  publication.  Burke's  fiery 
philippic  seemed  to  dry  up  their  strength,  as  the  sun  dries  up  the 
dew.  Nothing  could  stand,  in  public  opinion,  against  Burke's 
imperious  dilemmas.  But  it  is  the  moral  power  of  the  argument, 
and  the  brilliancy  with  which  it  is  enforced,  which  give  the  work 
its  value.  The  topics  themselves  are  of  slighter  significance. 
Half  awed  by  the  tones  of  the  preacher,  half  by  his  evident 
earnestness  and  self-conviction,  we  are  predisposed  to  submit  to 
his  general  doctrines,  although  we  cannot  feel  sure  of  their  appli- 
cability to  the  occasion.  Unfair  as  this  denunciation  was  to 
France,  we  sympathise  in  its  eflfects  on  the  malcontents  in  Eng- 
land. The  tone  of  the  book  was  well  suited  to  the  occasion. 
A  loud  and  bitter  cry  was  to  be  raised — the  revolutionary  propa- 
ganda was  to  be  stayed — and  to  this  end  all  that  could  be  said 
against  it  was  to  be  clearly,  sharply,  emphatically,  and  uncom- 
promisingly put  forth.  With  Hannibal  at  the  gates,  it  was  no 
time  for  half-opinions,  for  qualification,  and  for  temporisation. 
No  wise  man  could  hesitate  to  do  his  best  to  discredit  the 
Jacobins,  without  any  very  scrupulous  regard  to  absolute  justice. 
They  were  unjust  and  unscrupulous,  and  it  was  perhaps  pardon- 
able to  attack  them  with  their  own  weapons.  From  all  this 
we  deduce  the  critical  canon,  that  properly  to  understand 
Burke's  book  we  must  look  on  him  not  as  a  critic,  but  as  an 
advocate.  The  book  is  not  history,  nor  philosophy,  but  a 
polemic.  It  is  a  polemic  against  Jacobinism,  particularly  English 
Jacobinism. 

What  is,  or  rather  was,  Jacobinism?     In  the  usage  of  the  day, 


XVI  INTRODUCTION. 

it  was  a  vituperative  term  applied  summarily  to  all  opposition 
to  the  dominant  party.  He  who  doubted  Mr.  Pitt  was  set  down 
as  a  Jacobin,  much  as  he  who  doubted  the  Bishops  was  set  down 
as  an  infidel.  But  the  Jacobin  proper  is  the  revolter  against 
the  established  order  of  society.  What  those  who  stood  by  this 
established  order  understood  by  the  term  is  roughly  expressed 
in  Burke's  phrase  of  Treason  against  property.  *  You  have  too 
much,  I  have  too  little — you  have  privileges,  I  have  none — your 
liberties  are  essentially  an  encroachment  upon  mine,  or  those 
which  ought  to  be  mine.'  These  formulas  constitute  the  creed 
of  Jacobinism  in  its  simplest  and  rudest  form,  the  sentimental 
antagonism  of  poverty  against  wealth. 

•  Well,  whiles  I  am  a  beggar,  I  will  rail. 
And  say,  There  is  no  siii  but  to  be  rich : 
And  being  rich,  my  virtue  then  shall  be 
To  say.  There  is  no  vice  but  beggary*.* 

This  creed  will  never  lack  exponents.  It  is  founded  on  an 
ancient  tale,  and  in  a  certain  sense,  a  tale  of  wrong ;  but  whilst 
the  human  species  maintains  its  vantage  above  the  lower  animals, 
it  is  a  wrong  that  will  never  be  completely  righted.  In  Burke's 
view,  it  is  of  the  nature  and  essence  of  property  to  be  unequal. 
The  degrees  of  social  prosperity  must  always  exhibit  many  shades 
of  disparity,  '  Take  but  degree  away,  untune  that  string,'  and  you 
destroy  most  things  which  set  man  above  the  brutes.  Degree  is 
inseparable  from  the  maintenance  of  the  artificial  structure  of 
civilisation.  The  last  phrase  leads  us  to  note  the  fundamental 
fallacy  of  the  doctrine  in  its  next  stage  of  philosophical  or 
speculati've  Jacobinism.  Civilisation,  social  happiness,  the  comfort- 
able arts  of  life,  are  no  gilt  of  nature  to  man.  They  are,  in  the 
strictest  sense,  artificial.  The  French  philosophers,  by  a  gross 
assumption,  took  them  to  be  natural,  and  therefore  a  matter  of 
common  right  to  all. 

I  We  notice  here  a  fundamental  antagonism  alleged  by  Burke 
to  exist  between  the  Revolutionists  and  the  English  school  of 
politicians.  ^The  former  base  their  claims  upon  Right ; .  Burke, 
following  the  traditions  of  English  statesmanship,  claims  to  base 
his  upon  Law.  It  is  not  that  Law  has  no  basis  in  natural  Right: 
it  is  rather  that  Law,  having  occupied  as  a  basis  a  portion  of 

*  Shakespeare,  King  John,  Act  II. 


INTRODUCTION. 

the  space  naturally  covered  by  Right,  all  outside  it  ceases  to  be 
right  in  the  same  sense  in  which  it  was  so  before.  In  other 
words,  realised  Right,  in  the  shape  of  tangible  and  enforceable 
Law,  is  understood  to  be  so  material  an  advance  upon  abstract 
Right,  that  your  acceptance  of  the  former  amounts  to  a  re- 
nunciation of  the  latter.  You  cannot  have  both  at  once.  Now 
Jacobinism  may  be  regarded  as  the  sentiment  which  leads  man 
to  repudiate  Law  and  take  his  stand  upon  natural  Right.  The 
difficulty  is  that  in  so  doing  he  limits  himself,  and  seeks  to  reduce 
his  fellow-men,  to  the  right  of  the  naked  savage,  for  natural  right 
cannot  extend  beyond  the  state  of  nature.  As  Jacobinism  is 
the  repudiation  of  Law,  Burke  takes  his  stand  upon  the  Law; 
and  one  of  jthe  defects  of  the  present  work  is  that  he  carries 
this  too  far.^  It  has  been  said  of  his  attitude  in  this  work  that  he 
begins  like  apettifogger  and  ends  like  a  statesman.  The  argu- 
ment of  the  first  thirty-eight  pages  of  this  volume,  by  which  he 
claims  to  prove  that  Englishmen  have  irrevocably  bargained  away 
their  liberties  for  ever,  is  unquestionably  one  of  the  weakest 
passages  in  the  whole  of  Burke's  writings.  ;  Hallam-  has  proved  it 
untenable  at  many  points :  and  the  refutation  may,  it  is  believed, 
be  completely  made  out  by  reference  to  the  notes  at  the  end  of 
this  volume.  A  British  statesman  may,  however,  plead  a  closer 
relation  between  law  and  liberty  than  is  usual  in  most  countries, 
and  claim  to  be  leniently  criticised  for  defending  himself  on  the 
standpoint  of  the  lawyer. 

Men  of  the  law  were  the  statesmen  under  whom  the  British 
Constitution  grew  into  shape.  Men  of  the  law  defended  it  from 
Papal  aggression,  a  circumstance  to  which  Burke  complacently 
alludes  (p.  104):  and  one  of  his  main  ideas  is  the  thoroughly 
lawyer-like  one  that  liberty  can  only  proceed  'from  precedent 
to  precedent.'  This  onward  progress  he  admitted  as  far  as  the 
epoch  of  the  Revolution,  but  there,  in  a  way  characteristic  of 
him,  he  resolved  to  take  his  stand.  Magna  Charta,  the  Petition 
of  Right,  the  Bill  of  Rights,  and  the  Act  of  Settlement,  were  his 
undoubted'  chain  of  English  constitutional  securities,  and  he 
declined  to  admit  any  further  modification  of  them.  So  far  he 
was  in  harmony  with  popular  ideas.  When  he  went  beyond  this, 
and  declared  that  the  Act  of  Settlement  bound  the  English  nation 
for  ever,  his  reasoning  was  obviously  false.  The  whole  pro- 
cedure of  Bui-ke  throughout  this  book  is,  as  has  been  observed, 

VOL.  11.  b 


XVlll  INTRODUCTION. 

avowedly  that  of  an  advocate.  In  his  apology  called  the  'Appeal 
from  the  New  to  the  Old  Whigs,'  he  states  as  the  reason  that 
when  any  one  of  the  members  of  a  vast  and  balanced  whole  is 
endangered,  he  is  the  true  friend  to  them  all  who  supports  the 
part  attacked,  '  with  all  the  power  of  stating,  of  argument,  and  of 
colouring,  which  he  happens  to  possess,  and  which  the  case  de- 
mands. He  is  not  to  embarrass  the  minds  of  his  hearers,  or  to 
incumber  or  overlay  his  speech,  by  bringing  into  view  at  once 
(as  if  he  were  reading  an  academic  lecture)  all  that  may  and 
ought,  when  a  just  occasion  presents  itself,  be  said  in  favour  of 
the  other  members.  At  that  time  they  are  out  of  court ;  there 
is  no  question  concerning  them.  Whilst  he  opposes  his  defence 
on  the  part  where  the  attack  is  made,  he  presumes  that  for  his 
regard  to  the  just  rights  of  all  the  rest,  he  has  credit  in  every 
candid  mind.'  Burke's  overstrained  reverence  for  the  Act  of 
Settlement  may  be  partly  due  to  the  general  feeling  of  un- 
certainty which,  during  his  own  century,  prevailed  as  to  party 
principle.  As  early  as  Swift's  time,  parties  and  their  creeds  had 
become  thoroughly  confused  and  undistinguishable.  But  Burke 
demanded  something  positive — something  to  which  men  could  bind 
themselves  by  covenant.  Casting  a  glance  back  upon  the  history  of 
parties  from  Burke's  time,  the  Revolution  is  the  first  trustworthy 
landmark  that  we  meet  with.  In  the  apology  from  which  we 
have  just  quoted,  he  proclaims  the  speeches  of  the  managers  of 
the  impeachment  of  Sacheverel,  as  representing  those  who 
brought  about  the  English  Revolution,  to  be  the  fountains  of 
true  constitutional  doctrine.  After  this  epoch  he  seems  to  have 
distrusted  all  political  creeds.  There  is  hardly  one  notable 
political  work  of  the  day  immediately  preceding  him  to  which 
he  makes  allusion,  and  then  only  in  terms  of  censure. 

As  an  illustration  at  once  of  Burke's  instinctive  retreat  to  the 
shelter  of  legal  orthodoxy,  and  of  the  charm  which  his  pen  could 
throw  over  the  driest  statement  of  first  principles,  let  us  observe 
how  he  has  worked  up  a  well-known  passage  of  a  well-known 
legal  classic. 

*  The  design  of  entering  into  '  One  of  the  first  motives  to 
society  being  the  protection  of  civil  society,  and  which  be- 
our  persons  and  security  of  our  comes  one  of  its  fundamental 
property,  men  in  civil  society  rules,  is  that  no  man  should  be 
have  a  right,  and  indeed  are  judge  in  bis  own  cause.    By  this 


INTRODUCTION.  XIX 

obliged  to  apply  to  the  public  each  person  has  at  once  di- 
for  redress  when  they  are  in-  vested  himself  cf  the  funda- 
jured ;  for  were  they  allowed  mental  right  of  uncovenanted 
to  be  their  own  carvers,  or  man,  that  is,  to  judge  for  him- 
to  make  reprisals,  which  they  self,  and  to  assert  his  own 
might  do  in  a  state  of  nature,  cause.  He  abdicates  all  right 
such  permission  would  intro-  to  be  his  own  governor.  He 
duce  all  that  inconvenience  inclusively,  in  a  great  measure, 
which  the  state  of  nature  did  abandons  the  right  of  self- 
endure,  and  which  government  defence,  the  first  law  of  nature, 
was  at  first  invented  to  pre-  Men  cannot  enjoy  the  rights  of 
vent;  hence  therefore  they  are  an  uncivil  and  of  a  civil  state 
obliged  to  submit  to  the  public  together.  That  he  may  obtain 
the  measure  of  their  damages,  justice  he  gives  up  his  right 
and  to  have  recourse  to  the  of  determining  what  it  is,  in 
law  and  the  courts  of  justice,  points  the  most  essential  to 
which  are  appointed  to  give  him.  That  he  may  secure 
them  redress  and  ease  in  their  some  liberty,  he  makes  a  sur- 
affairs.'  (Bacon's  Abridgment,  render  in  trust  of  the  whole 
art.  Actions  in  General.)  of  it.'     (Page  70.) 

The  practical  jurisprudence  of  England  in  Burke's  time  stood 
sadly  in  need  of  Reform.     That  of  France  was  in  a  still  worse  '— 
case.     Burke  fully  recognised  the   necessity   of  removing  the 
'defects,  redundancies,  and  errors'  of  the  law  (p.  112),  though 
he  still  maintained  it  to  be  the  '  collected  reason  of  ages,'  and  the 
'pride  of  the  human  intellect.'     Whether  in  France  'the   old 
^  independent  judicature  of  the  Parliaments'  was  worth  preserving, 
in  a  reformed  condition,  as  Burke  so  strongly  insists,  admits  of 
doubt.     Scandalous  as  were  the  delays,  the  useless  and  cumbrous 
processes,  and  the  exaction  which  attended  the  management  of 
the  (English  law,  those  who  administered  it  were  at  least  able/^N 
men,  and  men  who  had  honestly  risen  to  their  places,  in  virtue    V 
of  their  native  and  acquired  qualifications.     It  was  not  so   in      ' 
France.     In  France  judges  purchased  their  places  and  suitors 
purchased  justice.     In  cases  where  this  may  not  be  absolutely 
true,  justice  at  the  hands  of  the  '  sworn  guardians  of  property ' 
was  a  doubtful  commodity,  and   few  will   now  deny  that  the 
Assembly  were  justified  in  making  a  clean  sweep  of  it  (see  p.  144).] 
As  to  the  common  law  which  they  administered,  its  condition 
will  bs  best  gathered  from  the  articles  on  the  subject  contained 
in  the  Encyclopedie.     It  is  enough  to  say  of  it  that  it  exhibited 
the   worst   characteristics  of  English  law  before  the  time  of 

b3 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

Richard  II.  The  general  system  of  English  law  he  thought 
entitled  a  qualified  commendation.  His  views  on  the  subject 
were  however  very  different  from  those  of  his  contemporary, 
Lord  Eldon.  He  did  not  systematically  discountenance  all  en- 
quiry, and  scout  all  proposed  reform.  He  had  taken  the  lead  in 
1780,  in  advocating  reforms  dealing  with  the  Royal  property, 
which  have  since  been  carried  out  with  general  approval.  He 
had  commenced,  early  in  his  career,  a  treatise  advocating  that 
reform  of  the  Irish  Penal  Laws  which,  when  carried  through  by 
his  friends  Savile  and  Dunning,  produced  the  awful  riots  of  1780. 
His  judgment  on  the  question  of  how  far  reform  was  admissible, 
and  at  what  point  it  degenerated  into  innovation,  coincides  with 
that  of  Bacon  and  Hale,  rather  than  with  that  of  Coke  and 
Eldon. 

Conceiving  the  English  nation  as  a  four-square  fabric  sup- 
ported on  the  four  bases  of  the  Church,  the  Crown,  the  Nobility, 
and  the  People,  it  is  natural  to  find  the  author  insisting  most  on 
the  excellences  of  those  elements  which  were  then  assailed  in 
France.  The  People,  of  course,  needed  no  defence,  nor  was  the 
Crown  as  yet  overthrown.  The  dream  of  the  moment  was  a 
constitutional  monarchy,  based  on  elements  similar  to  those  of 
the  English  Constitution  ^  Only  the  Church  and  the  Aristocracy 
were  as  yet  threatened  :  and,  next  to  the  defence  of  the  Church, 
the  best  known  section  of  the  present  treatise  is  that  which 
relates  to  the  Nobility.  On  this  subject,  independently  of  con- 
stitutional law  and  of  theory,  Burke  cherished  prejudices  early 
formed  and  never  shaken.  He  had  lived  on  terms  of  intimacy 
with,  and  was  bound  by  ties  of  mutual  obligation  to  some  of  the 
worthiest  members  of  the  British  aristocracy.  It  is  mainly  to' 
them  personally  that  his  panegyric  is  applicable.  Nobility,  how- 
ever, possessed  claims  which  he  was  as  eager  to  recognise,  as  an, 
important  establishment  of  the  common  law  of  the  country; 
and  as  justified  by  universal  analogy  and  supported  by  the  best 
general  theories  of  society.  *  To  be  honoured,  and  even  privi- 
leged, by  the  laws,  opinions,  and  inveterate  usages  of  our  country,*" 
was  with  him  not  only  a  noble  prize  to  the  person  who  attained- 
it,  but  a  politic  institution  for  the  community  which  conferred 
it.    Why?    Because  it  operated  as  an  instinct  to  secure  pro- 


*  See  vol.  i.  Introduction,  p.  xx. 


INTR  OD  UCTION.  Xxi 

perty,  and  to  preserve  communities  in  a  settled  state  (p.  164).  ;   yj 
But  Burke's  reasoning  is  vitiated  by  a  cardinal  fault.     It  is  per-    ,  ' 
vaded  by  his  own  conception  of  an  aristocracy,  derived  from  his     """"''^ 
own  personal  friends  and  fellow- workers.     The  aristocracy  of  ^    \/ 
(France  differed  from  that  of  England  as  substance  differs  from  v-.  (i^\ 
shadow.     In  England,  nobility  had  long  implied  privileges  which    \  .J^ 
are  merely  honorary ;  in  France  it  implied  privileges  substantial     "'    v, 
in  themselves,  and  grievous  to  those  who  were  excluded  from  -..  'L.,^ 
them.     Practically,  though  Burke  in  the  duties  of  his  advocacy  ^'■^,.,^^ 
denies  the  fact,  the  nobility  were  untaxed.     To  use  a  sufficiently 
accurate   expression,  the  feudal  system  was  still  in  operation  in 
France.     If  not  aggravated  by  natural  growth  during  successive 
centuries,  it  exhibited  a  growing  incompatibility  w'ith  what  sur- 
rounded it.     In  England  it  had  practically  been  extinct  for  two 
centuries,  and  it  was  now  absolutely  out  of  mind.     Barons  and 
Commons  had  long  made  up  but  one  People;  the  old  families 
were  mostly  extinct,  and  the  existing  Peers  were  chiefly  com- 
moners with  coronets  on  their  coats  of  arms.     At  the  present 
moment  not  a  single  seat  in  the  House  of  Peers  is  occupied  in 
virtue  of  tenure  \  and  the  Peerage,  saving  heraldic  vanities  and 
some  legal  and  social  courtesies,  practically  confers  nothing  but  a 
descendible  personal  magistracy,  exercised  at  considerable  ex- 
pense and  inconvenience.    The  status  of  a  Peer  generally  involves, 
in  addition,  the  maintenance  of  the  bulk  of  a  fortune  not  always 
large  in  the  least  remunerative   of  investments.      The  qualifi- 
cation for  a  Peerage  has  long  been  limited  to  a  long-continued 
course  of  service  to  the  State.     Every  one  of  these  conditions 
was  reversed  in  France.     The  nobleman  was  a  member  of  a- 

•  decaying  privileged  class,  who  clung  to  their  unjust  and  oppres- 
sive privileges  with  the  most  obstinate  tenacity.     It  was  the  idle 

•  noble  who  spent  the  hard  earnings  of  the  peasant.     Taxation  in 
",  England  fell  lightly  in  the  extreme  upon  the  poorer  classes ;  in 

France  they  bore  almost  the  whole  burden  of  the  national 
'  expenses.  Society  in  France  thus  rested  on  a  tottering  and 
.   artificial  frame  :  while  in  England  the  frame  had  gradually  and 

safely  accommodated  itself  to  the  change  of  social  force. 

But  in  the-Tnethod  of'Burke  every  argument  in  favour  of  a 

1  In    one   or  two  recent   instances   a  claim   to   sit  by  tenure   has  been 
advanced  and  rejected. 


XXll  INTRODUCTION. 

particular  element  of  the  State,  based  upon  the  special  excellence 
of  that  element,  is  subordinate  to  his  general  doctrine  of  the 
nature  of  the  State  as  a  grand  working  machine.  A  machine,  he 
thought,  to  attain  the  end  for  which  it  was  devised,  must  be 
allowed  to  work  fairly  and  continuously.  To  be  perpetually 
stopping  its  system  for  the  purpose  of  trying  experiments,  was  an 
error  venial  only  in  a  child.  To  destroy  it,  in  order  to  use  its 
parts  in  the  construction  of  some  other  ideal  machine,  which 
might  never  be  got  to  work  at  all,  was  criminal  madness.  The 
strictures  of  Burke  with  reference  to  this  great  and  central  point 
in  his  political  philosophy  are  only  partially  applicable  to  the 
French  Reformers  of  his  day ;  nor  are  they  at  any  time  unexcep- 
tionably  appropriate.  "Yet  they  constitute  a  profound  and  neces- 
sary substructure  in  every  intelligent  conception  of  civil  matters, 
and  as  such  they  will  never  cease  to  be  worthy  of  the  remem- 
brance of  the  most  practised  statesmen,  as  well  as  an  indispensable 
part  of  the  education  of  the  beginner  in  politics.  Every  student 
must  begin,  if  he  does  not  end,  with  Conservatism ;  and  every 
Reformer  must  bear  in  mind  that  without  a  certain  established 
base,  secured  by  a  large  degree  of  this  ofteli-forgotten  principle, 
his  best  devised  scheme  cannot  fail  to  fall  to  the  ground.'  The 
present  work  is  the  best  text-book  of  Conservatism  which  has 
ever  appeared. 

Burke  claims  for  his  views  the  support  of  the  English  nation. 
Political  events  and  the  popularity  of  his  book  alike  proved  that 
this  was  no  idle  boast :  but  it  necessarily  indicated  nothing  more 
than  that  the  party  of  progress  was  in  England  in  the  minority, 
while  in  France  it  was  in  the  ascendant.  Burke's  claim,  how- 
ever, involves  far  more.  It  asserts  that  the  doctrines  of  the 
revolution  had  long  been  well  known  in  England :  that  the  belief 
in  the  *  rights  of  man '  had  long  been  exploded,  and  its  conse- 
quences dismissed  as  pernicious  fallacies :  and  that  in  this  con- 
demnation the  best  minds  in  England  had  concurred.'  To 
examine  the  justice  of  this  claim  would  involve  the  whole  political 
and  religious  history  of  the  stirring  century  between  the  Spanish 
Armada  and  the  Revolution  of  1688.  This  is  far  beyond  our 
present  purpose,  which  may  be  equally  well  served  on  ground 
merely  literary.  Taking  English  literature  as  our  guide,  we  shall 
find  that,  two  hundred  years  before,  conclusions  very  similar  to 
those  of  Burke  were   formed  in   the  minds  of  philosophical 


INTRODUCTION.  XxIH 

observers.  The  significance  of  those  conclusions  is  not  impaired 
by  the  historical  results  of  tlie  contest.  They  throw  no  shade 
upon  the  glorious  victories  of  the  spirit  of  English  liberty.  They 
rather  illustrate  and  complement  them.  They  rather  tend  to  justify 
the  partial  adoption,  by  sober  and  reasonable  men,  when  the  sub- 
stance of  English  liberty  began  to  be  attacked  under  the  Scotch 
kings,  of  ideas  which  were  previously  limited  to  intemperate  and 
half-educated  minds.  But  these  ideas  never  penetrated  the  mass 
of  English  contemporary  thinkers.  Milton,  in  his  proposed  or- 
ganisation of  the  republic,  followed  Italian,  not  English  ideas: 
and  the  honour  due  to  Milton  will  not  prevent  our  recognising 
the  beauty  and  propriety  of  doctrines  from  which,  under  other 
circumstances,  even  he  might  have  drawn  his  practical  deduc- 
tions. 

That  Conservatism  is  compatible  with  philosophical  states- 
manship can  be  illustrated  in  a  remarkable  degree  from  the 
great  work  of  Hooker,  Hooker  and  Grotius  allow  a  view 
of  the  general  rights  and  obligations  of  civil  society,  which 
goes  far  beyond  what  Burke,  in  the  present  work,  will  admit  ^. 
But  the  great  English  divine,  while  discerning  the  necessity  of 
forsaking  the  narrow  political  theories  of  the  middle  ages,  forti- 
fied himself  in  his  enlarged  position  by  a  clear  definition  of  the 
limits  of  political  change.  In  the  state.  Hooker  saw  distinctly 
reflected  the  order  and  discipline  which  he  believed  to  have  been 
impressed  upon  the  natural  face  of  the  universe  by  an  all-wise 
and  beneficent  Creator.  The  reign  of  law  on  earth  reflected  the 
reign  of  law  in  heaven.  Hooker  ridicules  the  turbulent  wits  of 
old,  to  whom,  in  the  words  of  the  Roman  historian,  qiiieta  mo'vere 
magna  merces  'videbatur.  '  They  thought  the  very  disturbance  of 
things  established  an  hire  sufficient  to  set  them  on  work.'  The 
reader  of  Hooker  can  hardly  fail  to  be  struck  by  his  coincidence 
with  Burke's  mode  of  thought  and  argument.  Both  point  out 
the  value  of  what  the  English  nation  regards  as  an  everlasting 
possession ;  both  lay  bare  the  deep  foundations  of  law,  order,  and 
temporal  polity ;  and  seek,  by  the  united  force  of  truth  and 
reason,  to  display  and  vindicate  in  the  eye  of  the  world  the 
gradations,  the  dignities,  and  the  majesty  of  a  well-balanced  state. 
The  limits  of  the  application  of  general  principles  in  politics  are 

*  Hooker,  Book  i.  ch.  lo;  Grotius,  Book  i.  c.  3.  §  8.  par.  2,  &c. 


XXIV  INTRODUCTION. 

admirably  sketched  out  by  Hooker.  Following  Aristotle,  he 
remarks  the  fallacies  which  occur  from  disregarding  the  nature  of 
the  stuflF  which  the  politician  has  to  work  upon. 

'These  varieties  [the  phases  of  human  will  and  sentiment] 
are  not  known  but  by  much  experience,  from  whence  to  draw 
the  true  bounds  of  all  principles,  to  discern  how  far  forth  they 
take  effect,  to  see  where  and  why  they  fail,  to  apprehend  by  what 
degrees  and  means  they  lead  to  the  practice  of  things  in  shew, 
though  not  indeed  repugnant  and  contrary  one  to  another, 
requireth  more  sharpness  of  wit,  more  intricate  circuitions  of 
discourse,  more  industry  and  depth  of  judgment  than  common 
opinion  doth  yield.  So  that  general  rules,  till  their  limits  be  fully 
known  (especially  in  matter  of  public  and  ecclesiastical  affairs),  are 
by  reason  of  the  manifold  secret  exceptions  which  lie  hidden  in 
them,  no  other,  to  the  eye  of  man's  understanding,  than  cloudy 
mists  cast  before  the  eye  of  common  sense.  They  that  walk  in 
darkness,  know  not  whither  they  go.' — Book  v.  oh.  9. 

Such  conceptions  are  naturally  generated  in  a  comprehensive 
mind,  as  soon  as  the  world  is  stirred  by  the  impulse  to  shake  off 
old  evils.  Wisdom  consists  in  no  inconsiderable  degree,  says 
Burke,  in  knowing  what  amount  of  evil  is  to  be  tolerated.  *  II  ne 
faut  pas  tout  corriger,'  says  Montesquieu.  'Both  in  civil  and  in 
ecclesiastical  polity,'  says  Hooker,  '  there  are,  and  will  be  always, 
evils  which  no  art  of  man  can  cure,  breaches  and  leaks  more  than 
man's  art  hath  hands  to  stop.'  This  may  be :  but  it  is  certain  that 
breaches  and  leaks  which  one  age  has  regarded  as  incurable  have 
been  stopped  in  another.  The  science  of  politics,  unlike  most 
other  sciences,  is  too  often  regarded  as  having  reached  its  final 
stage:  many  a  specious  conclusion  is  vitiated  by  this  assumption. 
The  defect  of  such  aphorisms  as  that  of  Montesquieu  obviously 
lies  in  their  extreme  liabihty  to  abuse:  and  Burke  cannot  be 
absolved  from  the  charge  of  abusing  the  principle  which  the 
aphorism  embodies.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  Hooker  and 
many  another  Englishman  whose  authority  English  people  held  in 
high  respect,  had  done  the  same  thing  before  him.  The  following 
passage  of  Hooker  strikingly  reminds  the  reader  of  a  mode  of 
argument  frequently  employed  by  Burke  : — 

*  For  first,  the  ground  whereupon  they  build,  is  not  certainly 
their  own,  but  with  special  limitations.  Few  things  are  so 
restrained  to  any  one  end  or  purpose,  that  the  same  being  extinct 


INTRODUCTION.  XXV 

they  should  forthwith  utterly  become  frustrate.  Wisdom  may 
have  framed  one  and  the  same  thing  to  serve  commodiously  for 
divers  ends,  and  of  those  ends  any  one  be  sufficient  cause  for 
continuance,  though  the  rest  have  ceased,  even  as  the  tongue, 
which  nature  hath  given  us  for  an  instrument  of  speech,  is  not 
idle  in  dumb  persons,  because  it  also  serveth  for  taste.  Again,  if 
time  have  worn  out,  or  any  other  mean  altogether  taken  away, 
what  was  first  intended,  uses  not  thought  upon  before  may  after- 
wards spring  up,  and  be  reasonable  causes  of  retaining  that  which 
other  considerations  did  formerly  procure  to  be  instituted.  And 
it  Cometh  sometime  to  pass,  that  a  thing  unnecessary  in  itself  as 
touching  the  whole  direct  purpose  whereto  it  was  meant  or  can 
be  applied,  doth  notwithstanding  appear  convenient  to  be  still 
held  even  without  use,  lest  by  reason  of  that  coherence  which  it 
hath  with  somewhat  more  necessary,  the  removal  of  the  one 
should  indamage  the  other ;  and  therefore  men  which  have  clean 
lost  the  possibility  of  sight,  keep  still  their  eyes  nevertheless  in 
the  place  where  nature  set  them.' — Book  v.  ch.  42. 

The  ground  of  this  philosophical  or  rational  conservatism 
mainly  consists  in  seeking  to  contemplate  things  with  reference 
to  their  dependency  on  an  entire  system,  and  to  have  regard  to 
the  coherence  and  significance  of  the  system.  It  is  liable  to 
abuse :  and  many  may  think  that  the  whole  conception  belongs  to 
the  domain  of  poetry  rather  than  to  that  of  philosophy.  The 
poetry  of  the  time,  indeed,  reflects  it  in  more  than  one  place. 
The  idea  is  clearly  traceable  in  Spenser's  Cantos  of  Mutability, 
the  'hardy  Titaness,'  who,  seduced  by  'some  vain  error,'  dared 

'  To  see  that  mortal  eyes  have  never  seen.' 

The  poet  foreshadows  a  calamitous  break-up  of  the  established 
order  of  things,  a  mischievous  contortion  of  the  'world's  fair 
frame,  which  none  yet  durst  of  gods  or  men  to  alter  or  misguide,' 
and  a  reversal  of  the  laws  of  nature,  justice,  and  policy.  It 
reminds  us  something  of  the  bodings  of  the  Greek  chorus,  when 
they  sing  that  the  founts  of  the  sacred  rivers  are  turned  back- 
ward, and  that  justice  and  the  universe  are  suffering  a  revolution. 
Such  notions  are  unquestionably  more  than  the  over-wrought 
dreams  of  poets.  They  have  their  key  in  the  defective  moral 
tone  of  their  age :  but  it  by  no  means  follows  that  the  moral 
defect  which  this  iuiplies  covers  the  whole  ground  to  which  they 
extend.  Slumber  seems  natural  to  certain  stages  of  human 
history :  and  a  slumbering  nation  always  resents  the  first  signs  of 


XXVI  INTRODUCTION. 

its  awakenment.  We  may  trace  a  similar  vein  of  feeling,  stimu- 
lated by  the  same  revolutionary  agencies,  though  in  a  later  stage, 
in  the  poems  of  the  philosophical  and  *  well-languaged '  Daniel. 
The  faculty  of  looking  on  an  institution  on  many  sides  enabled 
Daniel  to  point  out 

'How  pow'rs  are  thought  to  wrong,  that  wrongs  debar.' 

Daniel  had  trained  himself  in  an  instructive  school,  in  the 
preparation  and  composition  of  his  History  of  the  Civil  Wars. 
Like  Burke,  he  was  of  opinion  that  political  wisdom  was  not  to 
be  obtained  a  priori.     The  statesman  must  study 

'  The  sure  records  of  books,  in  which  we  find 
The  tenure  of  our  state,  how  it  was  held 
By  all  our  ancestors,  and  in  what  kind 
We  hold  the  same,  and  likewise  how  in  th*  end 
This  frail  possession  of  felicity 
Shall  to  our  late  posterity  descend 
By  the  same  patent  of  like  destiny. 
In  them  we  find  that  nothing  can  accrue 
To  man,  and  his  condition,  that  is  new  '.* 

It  is  an  apt  illustration  of  Burke's  vehement  contention  that 
Englishmen  will  never  consent  to  abandon  the  sense  of  national 
continuity.  The  English  nation  is  emphatically  an  old  nation :  it 
proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  there  is  nothing  new  under  the 
sun.  It  is  always  disposed  to  criticise  severely  any  one  who 
labours,  as  Warburton  says,  under  that  epidemic  distemper  of 
idle  men,  the  idea  of  instructing  and  informing  the  world.  The 
heart  of  men,  and  the  greater  heart  of  associated  bodies  of  men, 
has  been  radically  the  same  in  all  ages.  In  the  laws  of  life  we 
cannot  hope  for  much  additional  illumination :  new  lights  in 
general  turn  out  to  be  old  illusions.  There  is  no  unexplored 
terra  australis,  whether  of  morality  or  political  science.  The 
great  principles  of  government  and  the  ideas  of  liberty  'were 
understood  long  before  we  were  born,  altogether  as  well  as  they 
will  be  after  the  grave  has  heaped  its  mould  upon  our  presumption, 
and  the  silent  tomb  shall  have  imposed  its  law  upon  our  pert 
loquacity  \'     In  a  literary  and  scientific  age,  it  is  impossible  that 

*  Dedication  of  Philotas.  '  Page  loi. 


INTRODUCTION.  XXvH 

this  dogmatism  can  pass  unchallenged :  but  Burke  is  right  in 
asserting  an  antagonism  between  the  beliefs  of  the  best  minds  of 
England,  as  represented  in  a  great  historic  literary  past,  and  those 
of  the  existing  literary  generation  in  France.  Englishmen  have 
in  all  times  affected  a  taste  for  public  matters  and  for  scholarship : 
and  this  affectation  is  not  ill  exemplified  in  one  who  was  a  man  of 
letters,  with  the  superadded  qualities  of  the  philosopher  and  the 
politician.  Curious  illustrations  of  a  normal  antagonism  between 
these  elements  may  be  derived  from  Daniel's  Dialogue  entitled 
'  Musophilus.'  Musophilus  is  the  man  of  letters,  Philocosmus  the 
man  of  the  world.  Philocosmus  taunts  Musophilus  with  his 
empty  and  purposeless  pursuits,  to  which  Musophilus  replies  by  a 
spirited  defence  of  learning.  Philocosmus  changes  his  ground, 
and  lays  to  the  charge  of  the  professors  of  learning,  who  over- 
swarm  and  infest  the  English  world,  a  general  spirit  of  discontent, 
amounting  to  sedition. 

•  Do  you  not  see  these  pamphlets,  libels,  rhimes. 
These  strange  compressed  tumults  of  the  mind, 
Are  grown  to  be  the  sickness  of  the  times, 
The  great  disease  inflicted  on  mankind  ? 
Your  virtues,  by  your  follies  made  your  crimes, 
Have  issue  with  your  indiscretion  joined.' 

Burke  insists  on  identifying  the  'literary  cabal'  as  the  chief 
element  in  the  ferment  of  Revolution  :  *  Men  of  letters,  fond  of 
distinguishing  themselves,  are  rarely  averse  to  innovation'  (p.  130). 
See  how  a  retired  observer  in  the  time  of  the  first  Stuart  antici- 
pates the  effects  of  the  same  misplaced  activity. 

'For  when  the  greater  wits  cannot  attain 
Th'  expected  good  which  they  account  their  right. 
And  yet  perceive  others  to  reap  that  gain 
Of  far  inferior  virtues  in  their  sight ; 
They  present,  with  the  sharp  of  envy,  strain 
To  wound  them  with  reproaches  and  despite. 

Hence  discontented  sects  and  schisms  arise ; 
Hence  interwounding  controversies  spring. 
That  feed  the  simple,  and  offend  the  wise.' 

Action,  Philocosmus  goes  on  to  say,  differs  materially  from  what 
is  read  of  in  books : 


XXVni  INTRODUCTION. 

*  The  world's  affairs  require  in  managing 
More  arts  than  those  wherein  you  clerks  proceed.* 

Men  of  letters,  in  the  indulgence  of  the  tastes  which  their 
pursuits  have  fostered,  lose  those  faculties  which  are  necessary 
to  the  conduct  of  affairs. 

'The  skill  wherewith  you  have  so  cunning  been 
Unsinews  all  your  powers,  unmans  you  quite.  \ 

Public  society  and  commerce  of  men 
Require  another  grace,  another  port.' 

Beware  of  the  philosopher  who  pretends  to  statesmanship.  The- 
Scholar  replies,  that  the  Statesman,  with  all  his  boasted  skill, 
cannot  anticipate  the  perils  of  the  time,  or  see 

•  how  soon  this  rolling  world  can  take 
Advantage  for  her  dissolution. 
Fain  to  get  loose  from  this  withholding  stake 
Of  civil  science  and  discretion ; 
How  glad  it  would  run  wild,  that  it  might  make 
One  formless  form  of  one  confusion.' 

The  mysteries  of  State,  the  '  Norman  subtleties,'  says  the 
Scholar,  are  now  vulgarised  and  common.  Giddy  innovations 
would  overthrow  the  whole  fabric  of  society.  But  what  is  the 
remedy  ?  To  '  pull  back  the  onruiming  state  of  things '  ?  This 
might  end  in  bringing  men  more  astray,  and  destroy  the  faith 
in  the  unity  and  continuity  of  civil  life,  which  is 

'  that  close-kept  palladium 
Which  once  remov'd,  brings  ruin  evermore.' 

Investigation  would  discover  much  the  same  vein  of  thought 
in  many  of  Daniel's  contemporaries.  Compare,  for  instance, 
Fletcher's  portraiture  of  Dichostasis,  or  Sedition, 

'That  wont  but  in  the  factious  court  to  dwell, 
But  now  to  shepherd  swains  close  linked  is. 

A  subtle  craftsman  fram'd  him  seemly  arms, 
Forg'd  in  the  shop  of  wrangling  sophistry ; 
And  wrought  with  curious  arts,  and  mighty  charms, 
Temper'd  with  lies,  and  false  philosophy.' 

The  Purple  Island,  Canto  vii. 


INTRODUCTION.  XXIX 

Among  Shakspere's  most  obvious  characteristics  is  that  which 
is  often  called  his  cbjectiveness.  He  does  not  task  his  characters 
to  utter  his  private  sentiments  and  convictions.  His  characters 
are  realities,  not  masks.  But  no  one  who  has  endeavoured  to 
penetrate  the  mind  of  Shakspere  as  reflected  in  his  whole  works 
will  deny  to  him  a  full  participation  in  Burke's  doctrine  of  faith 
in  the  order  of  society.  To  borrow  the  words  of  Hartley  Cole- 
ridge ^,  Shakspere,  as  manifested  in  his  writings,  is  one  of  those 
'  who  build  the  commonweal,  not  on  the  shifting  shoals  of  expedi- 
ence, or  the  incalculable  tides  of  popular  will,  but  on  the  sure 
foundations  of  the  divine  purpose,  demonstrated  by  the  great  and 
glorious  ends  of  rational  being ;  who  deduce  the  rights  and  duties 
of  men,  not  from  the  animal  nature,  in  which  neither  right  nor 
duty  can  inhere,  not  from  a  state  of  nature  which  never  existed, 
nor  from  an  arbitrary  contract  wliich  never  took  place  in  the 
memory  of  man  nor  angels,  but  from  the  demands  of  the  complex 
life  of  the  soul  and  the  body,  defined  by  reason  and  conscience, 
expounded  and  ratified  by  revelation.'  So  exact  is  the  applica- 
tion, one  might  think  he  was  speaking  of  Burke.  A  book  might 
be  made  up  by  illustrating  the  political  conceptions  of  Shakspere 
out  of  his  plays :  but  it  will  be  enough  for  our  purpose  to  con- 
sider one  or  two  specimens.  The  following  extract  from  the 
speech  in  which  Ulysses  demonstrates  the  ills  arising  from  the 
feuds  of  the  Greek  champions  is  alike  remarkable  for  the  com- 
pass of  its  thought  and  for  the  accuracy  with  which  it  reflects  a 
feeling  which  has  always  been  common  among  Englishmen.  A 
narrower  conception  of  the  same  argument  is  summed  up  in 
a  famous  epigram  of  Pope  commencing  '  Order  is  heaven's  first 
law.' 

•The  heavens  themselves,  the  planets  and  this  centre. 
Observe  degree,  priority,  and  place, 
Insisture,  course,  proportion,   season,   form. 
Office  and  custom,  in  all  line  of  order : 
And  therefore  is  the  glorious  planet,  Sol, 
In  noble  eminence  enthroned  and  sphered 
Amidst  the  other :  whose  med'cinable  eye 
Corrects  the  ill  aspects  of  planets  evil,  * 

And  posts,  like  the  commandment  of  a  king. 
Sans  check,  to  good  and  bad.    But  when  the  planeti 

*  Essays,  vol.  i.  p.  134. 


XXX  INTRODUCTION. 

In  evil  mixture  to  disorder  wander, 

What  plagues  and  what  portents  !   what  mutiny  I 

What  raging  of  the  sea  !    shaking  of  earth ! 

Commotion  in  the  winds !   frights,  changes,  horrors. 

Divert  and  crack,  rend  and  deracinate 

The  unity  and  married  calm  of  states 

Quite  from  their  fixture !     O,  when  degree  is  shak'd. 

Which  is  the  ladder  of  all  high  designs, 

The  enterprise  is  sick  !     How  could  communities. 

Degrees  in  schools,  and  brotherhoods  in  cities. 

Peaceful  commerce  from  dividable  shores. 

The  primogenitive  and  due  of  birth. 

Prerogative  of  age,  crowns,  sceptres,  laurels. 

But  by  degree,  stand  in  authentic  place  ? 

Take  but  degree  away,  untune  that  string. 

And,  hark  !   what  discord  follows !     Each  thing  meets 

In  mere  oppugnancy :    the  bounded  waters 

Should  lift  their  bosoms  higher  than  the  shores. 

And  make  a  sop  of  all  this  solid  globe : 

Strength  should  be  lord  of  imbecility. 

And  the  rude  son  should  strike  his  father  dead : 

Force  should  be  right :    or  rather,  right  and  wrong, 

(Between  whose  endless  jar  justice  resides) 

Should  lose  their  names,  and  so  should  justice  too. 

Then  everything  includes  itself  in  power, 

Power  into  will,  will  into  appetite : 

And  appetite,  an  universal  wolf. 

So  doubly  seconded  with  will  and  power. 

Must  make  perforce  an  universal  prey. 

And,  last,  eat  up  himself.     Great  Agamemnon, 

This  chaos,  when  degree  is  suffocate, 

Follows  the  choking.' 

Troilus  and  Cressida,  Act  i.  So.  3. 

No  passage  in  literature  reflects  more  faithfully  the  general  spirit 
of  the  present  work.  The  grave  tone  of  mingled  doctrine 
and  portent,  and  the  two  contrasted  moral  effects,  are  in  each 
exactly  similar. 

Jack  Cade  artd  his  rout,  and  the  mob  in  Coriolanus,  will  doubt- 
less occur  to  the  student  as  instances/ of  sharp  satire  against 
Democracy.  Shakspere  always  conceives  political  action,  espe- 
cially in  England,  as  proceeding  from  a  lawful,  monarch,  wielding 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXI 

real  power  under  the  guidance  of  wise  counsellors :  and  this  does 
not  differ  greatly  from  the  Whig  theory  to  which  Burke  always 
adhered. 

Quitting  the  Elizabethan  period,  it  would  be  easy  to  continue 
the  historical  vindication  of  Burke's  claim.  The  popular  party 
of  the  Commonwealth  and  the  Revolution  were  the  true  con- 
servatives of  their  age.  They  fought,  as  Burke  had  pointed  out 
in  a  previous  work,  for  a  liberty  that  had  been  consecrated  by 
long  usage  and  tradition ;  and  outside  this  memorable  strife  the 
greatest  of  English  minds,  with  a  few  exceptions,  surrendered 
themselves  to  the  general  tide  of  anti-revolutionary  opinion. 
Dryden,  always  a  favourite  authority  with  Burke,  is  an  obvious 
instance.  One  passage  from  his  prose  works  may  be  adduced 
to  show  that  the  worst  arguments  employed  by  Burke  in  the 
present  treatise  do  not  lack  the  authority  of  great  and  popular 
English  names: — 

*  Neither  does  it  follow  that  an  unalterable  succession  supposes 
England  to  be  the  king's  estate,  and  the  people  his  goods  and 
chattels  on  it.  For  the  preservation  of  his  right  destroys  not 
our  propriety,  but  maintains  us  in  it.  He  has  tied  himself  by 
law  not  to  invade  our  possessions,  and  we  have  obliged  ourselves 
as  subjects  to  him  and  all  his  lawful  successors:  by  which 
irrevocable  act  of  ours,  both  for  ourselves  and  our  posterity, 
we  can  no  more  exclude  the  successor  than  we  can  depose  the 
present  king.  The  estate  of  England  is  indeed  the  king's,  and 
I  may  safely  grant  their  supposition,  as  to  the  go'vernment  of 
England :  but  it  follows  not  that  the  people  are  his  goods  and 
chattels  on  it,  for  then  he  might  sell,  alienate,  or  destroy  them 
as  he  pleas'd ;  from  all  which  he  has  tied  himself  by  the  liberties 
and  privileges  which  he  has  granted  us  by  laws.' — Vindication  of 
the  Duke  of  Guise,  p.  53. 

It  may  be  truly  objected  that  the  course  of  English  political 
events  destroys  the  authority  of  these  Tory  formulas.  But  it  is 
Avell  known  that  the  Whig  policy  of  England  since  the  Revolution 
had  not  been  supported  by  a  majority  of  the  English  people. 
The  majority  of  English  people,  told  by  the  head,  would  down 
to  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  George  III  have  been  found 
to  be  Tory :  and  Burke  was  in  a  strong  position  when  he  averred 
that  such  was  the  disposition  of  the  English  nation  as  a  whole. 
Among  Dryden's  pof  ms,  the  famous  '  Absalom  and  Achitophel ' 
will    illustrate    the    Tory    feeling    which    the    English  people 


xxxii  INTRODUCTION^. 

cherished  :  but  it  will  be  found  in  its  most  compendious  form  in  the 
pendant  of  '  Absalom,'  the  matchless  satire  called  '  The  Medal.' 
The  lines  following  the  portraiture  of  Shaftesbury,  and  bitterly 
ridiculing  the  appeal  to  the  people  as  a  test  of  truth,  sum  up 
in  a  masterly  form  the  historical  and  philosophical  topics  com- 
monly urged  in  this  belief: — 

•  He  preaches  to  the  crowd  that  power  is  lent. 
But  not  conveyed,  to  royal  government : 
That  claims  successive  bear  no  binding  force : 
That  coronation  oaths  are  things  of  course: 
Maintains  the  multitude  can  never  err : 
And  sets  the  people  in  the  papal  chair. 
The  reason's  obvious :    Interest  never  lies. 
The  most  have  still  their  interest  in  their  eyes. 
The  power  is  always  theirs,  and  power  is  ever  wise. 
Almighty  crowd  !   thou  shortenest  all  dispute, 
Power  is  thy  essence,  wit  thy  attribute : 
Nor  faith  nor  reason  make  thee  at  a  stay: 
Thou  leap'st  o'er  all  eternal  truths  in  thy  Pindaric  way  1  * 

Phocion  and  Socrates  are  satirically  instanced  as  examples  of 
popular  justice.  Then  follows  a  remarkable  forecast  of  an  opinion 
first  elaborated  and  given  to  the  world  by  the  French  phi- 
losophers in  the  next  century : — 

'  The  common  cry  is  even  religion's  test, 
The  Turk's  is  at  Constantinople  best. 
Idols  in  India,  Popery  at  Rome, 
And  our  own  worship  only  true  at  home. 


A  tempting  doctrine,  plausible  and  new: 
What  fools  our  fathers  were,  if  this  be  true! 
Who,  to  destroy  the  seeds  of  civil  war. 
Inherent  right  in  nionarchs  did  declare : 
And,  that  a  lawful  power  might  never  cease, 
Secured  succession,  to  secure  our  peace. 
Thus  property  and  sovereign  sway  at  last 
In  equal  balances  were  justly  cast: 
But  this  new  Jehu  spurs  the  hot-mouthed  horse, 
Instructs  the  beast  to  know  his  native  force, 
To  take  the  bit  between  his  teeth,  and  fly 
To  the  next  headlong  steep  of  anarchy.* 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXlll 

In  the  conclusion  of  the  '  Medal '  the  poet  foreshadows  what 
is  called  the  'bursting  of  the  floodgates;'  the  inevitable  strife 
of  the  '  cut-throat  sword  and  clamorous  gown,'  the  abolition  of 
*  Peerage  and  Property,'  and  the  supremacy  of  a  popular  military 
commander.  Such  vaticinations  had  in  Burke's  time  been  familiar 
to  the  world  for  a  century :  and  he  now  imagined  that  he  saw 
them  about  to  be  fulfilled  in  France  ^. 

It  would  be  easy  to  pursue  the  same  track  in  Butler  and 
Swift,  in  the  vast  field  of  the  Essayists,  and  in  English  theological 
and  historical  writers,  among  whom  most  of  the  popular  names 
will  be  found  on  the  same  side.  The  Whigs  and  Tories  of  the 
century,  if  we  except  a  few  clerical  politicians,  alike  avoid  pro- 
fessing extremes.  The  popular  poets  of  Burke's  own  generation 
kept  up  the  idea  of  a  grand  historical  past  closely  connected  with 
the  existing  political  establishment.  English  poetry,  from  Spenser 
and  Drayton  to  Scott  and  Tennyson,  has  in  fact  always  been 
largely  pervaded  by  this  idea,  and  a  retrospective  tendency, 
tinged  with  something  of  pride  and  admiration,  has  generally 
accompanied  literary  taste  in  the  Englishman.  Milton  and 
Spenser  revelled  in  the  antique  fables  which  then  formed  the 
bulk  of  what  was  called  the  History  of  England.  Shakespeare 
dramatised  the  history  of  the  ages  preceding  his  own,  with  even 
more  felicity  than  the  remote  legends  of  Lear  and  Cymbeline. 
Little  of  this  is  to  be  noticed  in  the  taste  of  any  foreign  nation, 
and  the  literature  of  France  has  always  been  eminently  the 
oflfspring  of  the  moment.  French  minds  have  never  dwelt  with 
the  interest  derived  from  a  sense  of  identity  upon  the  events 
or  products  of  the  past.  Continental  critics  have,  as  might  be 
expected,  traced  the  love  of  the  English  for  the  English  past 
to  a  narrow  insularity.  They  ought  also  to  point  out  how 
intense  was  the  contrast,  down  to  the  French  Revolution,  of 
insular  and  continental  institutions.  In  Burke's  time,  religious 
and  political  liberty  were  to  Frenchmen  entirely  foreign  ideas. 
National  greatness  was  a  conception  common  to  both  the 
Englishman  and  the  Frenchman :  but  England  had  of  late 
repeatedly  humbled  that  of  France,  and  the  Frenchman  was 
just  beginning  to  enquire  into  the  causes  which  had  given  the 
smaller  country  its  superiority.     There  was  a  contrast,  and  a 

^  Burke  himself  quotes  'our  political  poet'  Denham  (p.  137). 
VOL.  II.  C 


XXXIV  INTRODUCTION. 

disposition  to  enquire  into  it:  the  English  and  French  people, 
during  the  eighteenth  century,  observed  the  social  and  pohtical 
tendencies  of  their  neighbours  with  curious  watchfulness.  The 
antagonism  was  heightened  by  the  commencement  of  social 
intercourse  between  them  in  the  intervals  of  war.  We  may  learn 
something  of  the  contrast  which  was  believed  to  subsist  between 
the  normal  tendencies  of  the  English  and  the  French  mind  from 
the  criticism  of  a  thoroughly  English  man  of  letters  upon  De 
Vertot,  whose  works  during  the  last  century  were  so  eagerly 
read  by  the  French  people^.  Warburton^,  himself  an  early 
friend  of  Burke,  marks  out  among  the  cheats  adopted  to  catch 
the  popular  ear,  that  '  entirely  new  species  of  historical  writing ' 
which  deals  with  the  revolutions  of  a  country.  De  Vertot  had 
put  together  in  a  popular  style  the  story  of  those  violent  changes 
which  had  taken  place  in  ancient  Rome,  and  in  modern  Sweden 
and  Portugal.  His  sensationalism  had  secured  him  an  extra- 
ordinary success.  Warburton,  indignant  at  '  the  present  fondness 
for  the  cheat,  and  its  yet  unsuspected  importance,'  proves  the 
system  false  in  itself,  'injurious  to  the  country  it  dismembers,' 
and  destructive  to  all  just  history, 

'  That  this  form  should  wonderfully  allure  common  readers,  is 
no  way  strange.  The  busy  active  catastrophe  of  revolutions 
gives  a  tumultuous  kind  of  pleasure  to  those  vulgar  minds  that 
remain  unaffected  with  the  calm  scenes  that  the  still  and  steady 
advances  of  a  well-balanced  state,  to  secure  its  peace,  power,  and 
durability,  present  before  them.  Add  to  this  that  the  revolution 
part  is  the  great  repository  of  all  the  stores  for  admiration,  whose 
power  and  fascination  on  the  fancy  we  have  at  large  examined ; 
whereas  the  steady  part  affords  entertainment  only  for  the  under- 
standing, by  its  sober  lessons  on  public  utility.' 

It  is  not  only  passively  useless;  it  tends  to  disgust  us  with 
the  system  of  society  altogether;  *  to  think  irreverently  of  it, 
and  in  time  to  drop  all  concern  for  its  interests.'  But,  it  may  be 
objected,  this  kind  of  history  best  discovers  the  nature  and 
genius  of  a  people.  '  Ridiculous ! '  says  the  critic,  '  as  if  one 
should  measure  the  benefits  of  the  Trent,  the  Severn,  or  the 
Thames,  by  the  casual  overflowing  of  a  summer  inundation.' 
He  goes  on  to  complain  of  the  injustice  inflicted  on  Englishmen 

1  See  note,  p.  295. 

*  Tracts  by  Warburton  and  a  Warburtonian,  p.  99. 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXV 

by  this  *  historical  method.'  We,  '  the  best  natured  people  upon 
earth,'  are  branded  by  these  charlatans,  on  the  score  of  our 
struggles  to  preserve  our  inherited  liberties,  '  with  the  title  of 
savage,  restless,  turbulent  revolutionists.'  It  is  easy  to  trace 
here  the  argument  of  Burke.  For  fifty  years  and  more,  when 
Barke  was  writing,  the  French  people  had  been  coming  to 
believe  in  Revolutions,  and  to  look  to  their  neighbours  on  the 
other  side  of  the  water  for  authentic  revolutionary  methods. 
The  facts  on  which  this  belief  was  based  were  ill  selected  and 
ill  understood.  But  the  craving  for  change  had  developed  into 
a  social  necessity.  The  Frenchman  still  turned  in  his  desperation 
to  England,  and  the  Englishman  at  once  repulsed  him  as  an 
enemy  and  despised  him  as  a  slave.  In  Warburton's  time,  the 
'  Anglomania '  of  which  this  was  but  one  form  was  a  novelty. 
Innovation  is  always  jealous  of  rivalry :  and  this  circumstance 
no  doubt  helped  to  attract  Warburton's  wrath.  But  that  which 
was  a  novelty  in  1727  had  become  inveterate  in  1789.  The 
sense  of  historical  and  political  truth  had  become  more  and  more 
obscured,  and  the  morbid  demand  for  change  had  grown  little  by 
little  into  a  madness.  Practical  political  life,  the  soul  and  school 
of  true  political  doctrine,  was  extinct.  The  old  fabric  of  the 
state  was  decayed,  and  none  knew  how  to  repair  it.  But  this, 
fact  as  it  was,  was  hardly  within  the  comprehension  of  English- 
men. 

To  this  day  it  may  be  said  that  the  mutual  criticisms  which 
Englishmen  and  Frenchmen  have  bandied  at  each  other  are 
generally  based  on  some  misunderstanding.  It  was  far  more  so  a 
century  ago.  In  more  than  one  topic  of  the  present  work  Burke 
transfers  to  French  matters  ideas  which  were  really  only  proper 
to  England.  In  Burke's  famous  delineation  of  European  society, 
at  its  best,  as  he  believed,  in  this  country,  there  was  little  or 
nothing  to  interest  or  instruct  the  Frenchman.  Those  parts  of 
the  work  which  are  best  calculated  to  their  end  are  the  arguments 
which  are  to  be  found  scattered  up  and  down  the  book  which 
deduce  from  English  society  the  higher  laws  which  ought  to 
govern  civil  life  in  general.  On  this  ground  we  have  Burke  at 
his  strongest. 

To  the  cherished  tradition  of  the  English  philosophy  of  the 
State,  the  incidents  of  the  French  Revolution  administered  an 
unexpected  and  powerful  impulse.     Burke  conceived  the  English 

c  2 


XXXvi  INTRODUCTION. 

political  creed  to  be  threatened  and  misunderstood:  his  ready 
intellect  at  once  traced  this  creed  to  its  most  imposing  deduc- 
tions, and  his  fiery  and  poetical  fancy  moulded  it  into  new  and 
more  striking  forms.  We  have  in  the  present  work,  for  the  first 
time,  a  deliberate  retrospect  of  what  European  society  in  its 
I  old-fashioned  and  normal  shape  has  done  for  the  human  race, 
heightened  by  all  that  passion  and  rhetoric  can  do  to  recommend 
it.  Burke  had  caught  inspiration  from  his  opponents.  Just  as 
the  Revolutionist  in  his  dogmatism  displays  all  the  bitterness  and 
the  intractability  of  an  ecclesiastic,  so  Burke  communicates  to  his 
philosophy  of  society  something  of  the  depth  and  fervour  of  reli- 
gion. The  state,  according  to  his  solemn  figure,  which  reflects 
alike  the  mode  of  thought  of  the  great  statesman  and  philosopher 
of  Rome,  and  of  our  English  philosophical  divines,  is  an  emanation 
of  the  Divine  WilP. 

The  political  philosophy  of  Burke,  though  in  itself  systematic 
and  complete,  makes  no  pretence  to  the  character  of  what  is 
(understood  by  a  scientific  theory.     It  rests  on  ignorance,  and,  in 

! technical  language,  may  be  described  as  sceptical.  The  best 
formula  afforded  by  the  present  work  to  express  it  is  that  which 
idescribes  the  human  race  as  a  '  great  mysterious  incorporation  ^.' 
Society,  though  a  changeable  and  destructible  system,  is  not  like 
a  machine  which  can  at  will  be  taken  to  pieces,  regulated,  and 
iteconstructed.  Its  motive  force  is  as  incomprehensible  as  that 
of  the  individual  man.  All  analysis  is  evaded  by  those  ties  which 
bind  together  the  obligations  and  affections  of  the  individual  into 
an  intelligible  and  operative  whole ;  and  it  is  exactly  so  with 
those  which  bind  together  the  system  of  the  State.  Society,  to 
repeat  a  trite  formula,  is  an  organism,  not  a  mechanism.  As  life 
itself  is  an  insoluble  mystery,  so  is  the  life  of  that  invisible  entity 
which  is  understood  by  the  term  '  society.'  The  attempt  to  defy 
this  mystery  is  as  fatuous  and  presumptuous  as  would  be,  in  the 
mechanical  world,  the  attempt  to  animate  a  mass  of  dead  parts. 
Society  is  not  made,  it  grows ;  and  by  ways  as  dark  and  mysterious 
as  those  which  from  its  earliest  germ  conduct  and  limit  the 
destination  of  life  in  the  individual,  ^vafi  ttoXitikov  fSov  av- 
dpcoTTos.  The  elementary  nature  expressed  in  each  word  of  this 
profound  expression  of  Aristotle,  is  involved  in  an  equal  degree 

»  Page  rig.  'Page  39. 


INTRODUCTION.  XXXvii 

of  obscurity.  Neither  Man  nor  the  State  can  escape  from  the 
character  of  original  mystery  impressed  upon  them  by  the  life 
and  the  nature  in  and  by  which  they  are  generated.  Frankly 
admitting  this,  and  drawing  our  conclusions  only  from  the  posi- 
tive character  which  the  moral  and  political  man  in  his  several 
aspects  actually  reveals,  we  shall  be  safe;  but  in  the  fruitless 
effort  to  lift  the  veil  we  cannot  but  err.  The  true  method  of 
politics,  as  of  all  branches  of  practical  knowledge,  is  that  of  ex- 
periment. Examine  the  face  of  society.  Observe,  as  Newton 
did  in  the  planetary  systenj,  the  strong  gravitating  forces  which 
draw  its  particles  into  congruous  living  shapes;  but  with  the 
wisdom  of  Newton,  discard  all  tempting  hypotheses,  and  pene- 
trate no  further.  Trust  and  cherish  whatever  you  find  to  be  a 
motive  power,  or  a  cementing  principle,  knowing  that,  like  the 
wind  that  blows  as  it  lists,  it  is  a  power  over  which  you  have  no 
control,  save  to  regulate  and  to  correct.  Deal  reverently,  as  one 
that  has  learnt  to  fear  himself^,  and  to  love  and  respect  his  kind, 
even  with  the  errors,  the  prejudices,  the  unreasoned  habits,  that 
are  mixed  in  those  powers  and  principles.  You  cannot  under- 
stand them,  you  cannot  disregard  or  defy  them ;  you  cannot  get 
rid  of  them.  You  must  take  the  frame  of  man  and  of  society  as 
a  Power  above  you  has  made  them.  To  guide  you  in  dealing 
with  them,  you  have  the  experience  of  many  who  have  gone 
before  you,  presumably  not  your  inferiors  in  qualifications  for 
the  task,  and  who  may  have  been  free  from  special  difficulties 
which  stand  in  your  own  way. 

Burke's  doctrine  on  the  origin  of  society  corresponds  to  this 
view  of  its  nature  and  foundation.  More  than  one  of  the  uses 
which  help  to  keep  society  together  have  in  theory  been  adopted 
as  its  possible  origin,  but  these  uses  all  germinate  from  the  in- 
stinct of  congregation.  Aristotle  and  Cicero  had  each  in  their 
time  maintained,  against  contemporary  theorists,  that  in  this 
instinct  is  to  be  traced  the  true  germ  of  social  organisation ;  and 
their  view  was  revived,  at  the  revival  of  letters,  in  the  remarkable 
tract  of  Buchanan,  De  Jure  Regni.  According  to  this  view,  the 
uses  and  advantages  of  social  life  are  entirely  an  aftergrowth 
upon  the  results  of  the  unreasoned  tendency,  operating  through 
the  rude  channels  of  the  feelings,  of  individual  human  animals  to 

*  Page  199. 


XXXviu  INTRODUCTION. 

gravitate  together.  *  Ea  est  quaedam  naturae  vis,  non  hominibus 
modo,  sed  mansuetioribus  etiam  aliorum  animantium  indita  .  .  . 
congregandorum  hominum  caussa  longe  antiquior,  et  communi- 
tatis  eonim  inter  ipsos  multo  prius  et  sanctius  vinculum.'  It  is 
this  law  of  nature  (pp.  39,  40)  which  true  political  philosophy  ever 
follows :  the  varied  utilities  of  life  grow  out  of  nature,  as  out  of  a 
living  stock.  The  State  then,  says  Buchanan,  is  no  device  of  the 
orator  or  the  lawyer,  but  an  immediate  emanation  of  the  Divine 
Power  and  Goodness :  and  he  proceeds  to  cite  the  beautiful  senti- 
ment of  Cicero,  quoted  in  these  pages  of  Burke,  '  nihil  eorum 
quae  quidem  fiant  in  terris  acceptius  quam  concilia  et  coetus 
hominum  jure  sociati  quae  civitates  appellantur.'  The  same 
belief,  that  society  rests  on  the  developement  of  a  mysterious 
instinct  under  the  guidance  of  divine  law,  colours  Burke's  view 
of  the  duties  of  the  statesman.  In  his  mind  these  duties  invested 
him  with  something  of  the  character  of  a  religious  teacher,  and  it 
was  natural  that  this  conception  should  be  heightened  by  his 
belief  that  the  theorists  whom  he  was  opposing  were  principled 
atheists.  The  great  principles  of  faith  and  duty  were  in  Burke's 
imagination  equally  threatened,  and  he  boldly  takes  his  stand 
upon  both  for  the  defence  of  both.  It  is  enough  for  us  to 
observe  that  this  theory  of  the  State,  though  reflecting  in  a  great 
degree  doctrines  which  seem  to  belong  chiefly  to  theology,  is 
neither  inconsistent  nor  improbable.  While  he  despises,  as 
Buchanan  had  done,  the  beggarly  theory  which  would  make 
society  exclusively  dependent  upon  the  utilities  which  attend  it, 
and  rests  it  upon  the  simpler  and  higher  basis  of  nature,  he  does 
not  go  beyond  the  lines  of  evidence  and  of  legitimate  presump- 
tion, and  he  makes  the  domain  of  political  philosophy  a  wider 
and  a  more  interesting  field. 

In  Burke's  philosophy,  God,  Nature,  and  Society  are  con- 
ceived as  three  inseparable  entities.  B^urke  thus  followed  the 
pagan  philosopher  Cicero  in  fortifying  his  political  creed  by 
reference  to  that  religious  sentiment  which  is  so  nearly  akin  to 
it.  Religion,  according  to  Burke,  is  a  necessary  buttress  to  the 
social  fabric.  It  is  more  than  this:  it  pervades  and  cements  the 
whole.  It  is  the  basis  of  education  :  it  attends  the  citizen  in  every 
act  of  life  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  Religion  is  part  of  man's 
rights.  The  exact  form  of  religion  which  the  State  should  autho- 
rise was  believed  by  Burke  to  be  an  entirely  secondary  matter. 


INTRODUCTION,  XXxix 

It  is  probable  that  he  would  have  had  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  established  in  Ireland,  as  the  Anglican  Church  was  estab- 
lished in  England.  In  common  with  many  English  churchmen  of 
his  age  he  had  thus  entirely  abandoned  the  position  of  a  century 
ago.  For  religion  in  some  positive  form  Burke  always  argued 
strongly,  in  opposition  to  the  contrary  opinion  which  was  then 
fast  spreading  both  in  France  and  England.  Philosopher 
though  he  was,  the  arguments  of  the  Freethinkers  were  to 
him  entirely  inconclusive.  It  is  no  solid  objection,  in  Burke's 
method,  to  any  element  of  doctrine  that  it  rests  more  or  less 
upon  what  is  artificial,  or  upon  what  cannot  be  wholly  sustained 
by  reference  to  scientific  laws.  When  we  find  any  more  or  less 
dubious  doctrine  tenaciously  cherished  by  reasonable  and  civilised 
men,  it  will  mark  us  for  true  politicians,  perhaps  for  true  philo- 
sophers, not  uselessly  to  denounce  it  as  a  ridiculous  fancy,  but  to 
treat  the  apparent  error,  to  borrow  a  beautiful  expression  of 
Coleridge,  as  tiie  uncertain  reflection  of  some  truth  that  has  not 
yet  risen  above  the  horizon.  It  should  be  enough  to  secure  our 
respect,  if  not  our  total  approval  and  our  sincere  enthusiasm,  that 
any  element  has  so  inwrought  and  domesticated  itself  in  the 
human  mind,  as  to  become  an  inseparable  part  of  the  heritage  of 
successive  generations.  Something  of  this  kind,  uniting  our  civil 
and  social  instincts  with  a  faith  in  some  Divine  order  of  things, 
can  certainly  be  recognised  in  the  highest  as  well  as  in  the  lowest 
order  of  minds.  At  any  rate,  the  explanation  of  the  '  obstinate 
questionings '  of  nature  obtained  by  this  way  of  looking  at  them 
was  good  enough  for  Aristotle  and  for  Bacon,  for  Milton  and  for 
Newton,  for  Cicero  and  for  Burke,  and  it  is  good  enough  for 
ordinary  people.  How  it  enters  into  the  present  argument  may 
be  summarily  expressed  in  the  words  of  Hooker,  as  taken 
down  by  an  anecdotist  from  the  mouth  of  Burke  himself^. 
'The  reason  why  first  we  do  admire  those  things  which  are 
greatest,  and  second  those  things  which  are  ancientest,  is  because 
the  one  are  least  distant  from  the  infinite  substance,  the 
other  from  the  infinite  continuance,  of  God.'  It  is  the  germ 
of  political  theory  contained  in  the  present  volume.  A  man 
asked  Grotius  what  was  the  best  book  on  Politics.     The  best, 

*  In  an/ interesting  breakfast-conversation  with  Burke,  a  year  or  two 
before  the  Revolution,  detailed  in  an  anonymous  '  Beauties  of  Burke,'  2  vols. 
1798.     The  quotation  is  from  Book  v.  ch.  69. 


xl  INTRODUCTION. 

said  Grotius,  is  a  blank  book.  Look  around  you,  and  write  what 
you  see.  The  first  thing  which  a  man  sees  is,  that  men  do  not  in 
general  reason  upon  Politics.  Their  reason  seems  to  exhaust 
itself  upon  other  subjects.  Their  best  reasoned  conclusions  are 
often  forced  to  give  way  to  instincts  and  sentiments  for  which 
they  have  no  rational  account  to  give.  Even  so  it  is  with  reason 
and  instinct  in  matters  of  religion.  It  is  a  paradox,  but  when  we 
speak  of  things  above  ourselves,  what  is  not  paradox  ? 

Resolved  into  their  elements,  the  mainspring  both  of  rational 
religion  and  of  rational  politics  seems  to  be  the  sentiment  of 
dependence.  The  effect  traceable  to  this  no  other  theory  of  life  or 
of  society  will  account  for.  The  sum-total  of  rational  metaphysics 
has  been  held  to  consist  of  but  two  propositions.  The  first, 
which  is  involved  in  the  Cogito,  ergo  sum,  of  Descartes,  may  be 
expressed  as  *  Here  I  am.'  The  second  as  '  I  did  not  put  myself 
here.'  To  cut  ourselves  off",  even  in  thought,  from  our  depend- 
ence on  our  surroundings,  is  to  commit  moral  suicide.  But  our 
dependence  on  what  is  outside  us,  is  not  limited  to  our  contem- 
poraries. It  passes  on  from  generation  to  generation :  it  binds 
us  to  the  past  and  to  the  future.  Society,  says  Burke,  in  his 
grand  Socratic  exposure  of  the  imbecile  logic  which  confounded 
two  meanings  of  one  word  ^,  is  a  partnership  in  all  science,  in  all 
art,  in  every  virtue,  and  in  all  perfection :  a  partnership  not  only 
between  those  who  are  living,  but  between  those  who  are  living, 
those  who  are  dead,  and  those  who  are  to  be  born.  There  is, 
says  a  poet  who  had  fed  upon  this  sublime  thought, 

'  One  great  society  alone  on  earth, 
The  noble  living  and  the  noble  dead.' 

The  fair  mansion  of  civilisation  which  we  enjoy  was  not  built 
with  our  hands,  and  our  hands  must  refrain  from  polluting  it. 
Being  mere  life-tenants,  we  have  no  business  to  cut  off  the  entail, 
or  to  commit  waste  on  the  inheritance  -.  On  both  sides  of  us 
extends  a  vast  array  of  obligations.  Millions  as  we  may  be,  we 
stand  as  a  small  and  insignificant  band  between  the  incalculable 
mass  of  those  who  have  gone  before  us,  and  the  infinite  army  of 
those  who  follow  us,  and  are  even  now  treading  on  our  heels.  Our 
relation  to  the  great  structure  in  which  we  are  privileged  to 

*  'Societe,'  meaning  both  society  znA  partnership  (p.  1 13). 
'  Page  112. 


INTRODUCTION.  xli 

occupy  a  niche  for  a  while,  is  as  that  of  the  worm  and  the  mollusc 
to  the  mysterious  and  infinite  totality  of  universal  life.  We  stand 
there  as  the  undertakers  of  an  awful  trust.  Like  the  torch-players 
in  the  stadium,  it  is  our  business  to  transmit  the  precious  fire 
which  we  bear,  unquenched  and  undimmed,  to  those  who  succeed 
us.  This  is  what  Burke  explains  as  '  one  of  the  first  and  most 
leading  principles  on  which  the  commonwealth  and  the  laws  are 
consecrated.'  To  deny  it  is  to  reduce  men  to  the  condition 
of  the  '  flies  of  a  summer  '  (pp.  1 1 1,  112). 

It  is  an  observation  of  Hume  that  one  generation  does  not  go 
off  the  stage  at  once,  and  another  succeed,  as  is  the  case  with 
silkworms  and  butterflies.  There  is  a  perpetually  varying  margin, 
into  which  the  men  of  one  age  and  those  of  that  which  succeed 
are  blended.  In  this  everlasting  continuity,  which  secures  that 
the  human  race  shall  never  be  wholly  old  or  wholly  new,  lies  the 
guarantee  for  the  existence  of  civilisation.  No  break  in  this 
continuity  is  possible  without  the  lapse  of  mankind  into  its 
primitive  grossness.  Imagine  for  a  moment  such  an  intermission. 
The  shortest  blank  would  be  enough  to  ensure  the  disappearance 
of  every  pillar,  buttress,  and  vault,  which  helps  to  sustain  the 
lofty  and  intricate  structure  of  civilised  society.  We  can  hardly 
figure  to  ourselves  the  horrible  drama  of  a  new  generation  of 
utter  savages  succeeding  to  the  ruins  of  all  that  we  enjoy.  Yet 
so  soon  as  the  work  of  moral  and  political  education  flags,  this 
result  is  immediately  hazarded.  In  the  imagination  of  Burke, 
France  was  well  on  the  highroad  to  this  awful  situation:  to  a 
solution  of  moral  continuity  as  disastrous  in  its  effects  as  a 
geological  catastrophe.  Ail  the  facts  of  history  prove  that 
civilisation  is  destructible.  It  is  an  essence  that  is  ever  tending 
to  evaporate :  and  though  the  appreciation  of  all  that  is  precious 
in  the  world  depends  on  the  feeling  of  its  perishability,  it  is 
seldom  that  this  fact  is  realised.  We  come  to  regard  our 
social  life  as  a  perpetual  and  indestructible  possession,  destined, 
like  the  earth  on  which  we  move,  to  devolve,  without  any 
trouble  or  care  on  our  part,  upon  our  posterity.  But  the 
whole  tenour  of  history  is  against  us.  The  Greeks  little 
dreamed  of  the  day  when  their  broken  relics,  once  more 
understood,  would  repair  a  decayed  world,  and  to  those  who 
come  after  us,  things  which  to  us  are  almost  as  valuable,  and 
quite    as   little   valued    as    the   air   we   breathe,   may    be   the 


xlli  INTRODUCTION. 

objects  of  curious  conjecture,  or  of  contemptuous  neglect. 
Regard  our  inheritance  in  its  true  light,  as  a  precious  thing  that 
we  should  fear  to  lose,  and  we  begin  to  estimate  it  at  its  true 
value.  Regard  our  own  title  to  it  as  a  solemn  trust  for  the 
benefit  of  our  descendants,  and  we  shall  understand  how  foolishly 
and  immorally  we  act  in  tampering  with  it.  How  such  anticipa- 
tions as  Burke's  wrought  on  kindred  minds,  might  be  aptly 
illustrated  from  Wordsworth's  well-known  Dream  of  the  Arab^, 
who,  forewarned  by  prophecy,  is  hastening  to  bury,  for  preserva- 
tion from  the  approaching  deluge,  the  precious  talisman  that 

'  Had  voices  more  than  all  the  winds,  with  power 
To  exhilarate  the  spirit,  and  to  soothe, 
Through  every  clime,  the  heart  of  human  kind.* 

This  conception  of  great  intersecular  duties  devolving  upon 
humanity,  generation  after  generation,  reflects  on  a  large  scale 
an  instinct  which  has  undoubtedly  been  strong  in  the  English 
people.  The  disposition  rather  to  recur  in  thought  upon  the  value 
of  the  social  life  and  social  character  which  we  inherit,  than  to 
strain  discontentedly  for  some  imaginary  ideal,  has  largely  entered 
into  the  temperament  of  those  races  which  have  been  chiefly 
instrumental  in  superinducing  civilised  society  over  the  face  of 
the  earth.  'Moribus  antiquis  res  stat  Romana,  virisque,'  says 
Ennius.  So  says  Burke,  in  effect,  of  the  civilised  life  which  the 
English  race  have  now  spread  over  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe. 
With  the  English  race  have  universally  gone  the  old  English  ideas 
on  religion,  on  politics,  and  on  education ;  America  and  the  rest 
of  the  new  world  have  taken  them  from  us  and  are  giving  them 
a  new  and  fruitful  development.  After  the  lapse  of  nearly 
a  century,  America  and  England  still  exhibit  on  the  whole  the 
highest  political  and  social  ideals.  The  English  type,  during  the 
present  century,  has  been  more  widely  imitated  than  the  Greek 
or  the  Roman  at  the  height  of  their  fame.  Our  social  ideas, 
poor  as  they  may  be  by  comparison  with  the  creations  of  ingeni- 
ous speculation,  clearly  have  some  very  remarkable  value  of  their 
own.  One  element  of  this  value  is  that  efi^ect  upon  the  individual 
which  is  attributed  to  them  by  Burke.  They  tend  to,  or  at  any 
rate  favour  the  development  of  a  certain  'native  plainness  and 
directness  of  character.'     They  keep  a  man  face  to  face  with  life 

*  Prelude,  Book  v. 


INTRODUCTION.  xliii 

and  realitv.  They  include  a  moral  code  which  fits  all  times  and 
seasons,  all  ranks  and  conditions  of  life ;  which  hardens  a  man 
where  it  is  good  that  he  should  be  hardened,  and  softens  him 
where  it  is  good  that  he  should  be  softened.  The  same  may 
perhaps  be  said,  in  a  less  degree,  of  some  moral  codes  of  the 
ancient  world ;  but  it  certainly  cannot  be  said  of  those  of  modern 
paganism.  The  lives  of  some  of  the  best  and  most  earnest  of 
modern  Englishmen  may  not  be  fairly  comparable  with  that  of 
Socrates ;  but  we  may  justly  boast  of  a  standard  far  transcend- 
ing that  of  Rousseau  and  of  Goethe,  A  high  standard  of 
character  cannot  be  independent  of  some  corresponding  standard 
of  politics ;  and  every  name  which  keeps  the  name  of  England 
respected  throughout  the  world,  will  be  found,  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  to  confirm  that  aspect  of  English  character,  private  and 
public,  which  Burke  puts  forward. 
^^  Burke  is  at  his  best  when  enlarging  thus  on  the  general  philo-  >^ 
.  sophy  of  society  :  he  breaks  down  when  he  proceeds  to  its  appli-  /^ 
>»  cation.  There  are  few  topics  in  the  present  volume  of  which  this 
is  not  true :  and,  as  has  been  already  noticed,  it  is  conspicuously 
true  of  the  opening  argument  on  the  British  Constitution. 
Pitiful  as  it  is  to  see  the  fine  mind  of  Burke  self-devoted  to  the 
drudgery  of  Tory  casuistry,  it  is  even  more  so  to  find  his  usually 
ready  and  generous  sympathies,  as  the  work  advances,  remorse- 
lessly denied  to  the  cause  of  the  French  people.  It  was  not  for 
any  liberal-minded  Englishman,  rich  in  the  inheritance  of  consti- 
tutional wisdom  and  liberty,  to  greet  the  dawn  of  representative 
institutions  in  France  with  nothing  but  a  burst  of  contempt  and 
sarcasm.  Least  of  all  was  this  attitude  towards  the  National 
Assembly  becoming  to  Burke.  His  opening  address  to  the 
French  politicians^  is  more  than  ungenerous:  it  is  unjust.  It 
seems  incredible  that  any  one  should  have  been  found  to  declare  .--^ 
that  the  path  of  reform  in  France  was  '  a  smooth  and  easy  career 
of  felicity  and  glory,'  which  had  been  recklessly  abandoned".   To 

*  Page  41. 

'(Jn  the  opinion  that  France  possessed  all  the  elements  of  a  good 
constitution,  which  only  required  to  be  cleared  of  rust  and  obstructions  and 
put  in  working  condilion,  Burke  erred  with  many  intelligent  and  patriotic 
Frenchmen.  We  can  now  see  that  such  was  not  the  case,  and  further 
that  France  was  not  at  that  time  in  a  condition  to  adopt  any  political 
system  of  the  kind  which  was  then  meant  by  the  term  constitutional.  The 
boasted  English  constitution  of  Burke's  time  was  a  notorious  sham.     It  has 


Xliv  INTRODUCTION. 

do  Burke  justice,  he  quickly  saw  how  falsely  he  had  judged  in 
discerning  no  effect  of  the  Revolution  upon  France  save  mutila- 
tion and  disaster.  Two  years  more,  and  we  hear  nothing  about 
the  *  fresh  ruins  of  France,'  and  the  French  nation  '  not  politically 
existing,'  Under  that  guidance  which  at  first  appeared  so  con- 
temptible, France  speedily  acquired  a  power  far  more  formidable 
than  had  been  known  in  the  most  vigorous  period  of  the  mon- 
archy. Burke  then  ceased  to  call  the  leaders  of  the  Revolution 
fools,  and  declared  them  to  be  fiends. 
Burke's  contemptuous  parallel  of  the  representatives  of  the 

now  been  exploded ;  England,  as  every  one  knows,  is  a  democracy  ruled 
by  the  delegates  of  the  Commons.  But  it  was  that  very  pasteboard  show 
of  interdependent  powers  which  was  fast  losjjig  its  credit  in  England,  which 
Burke  wished  to  see  imitated  in  France^/'  Montesquieu  was  more  clear- 
sighted. Intensely  as  he  affected  to  admire  the  political  system  of 
England,  his  doctrine  was  that  France  ought  to  be  left  alone.  '  Leave 
us  as  we  are,'  is  the  constant  theme  of  that  hypothetical  speaker  by  whom 
Montesquieu  (De  I'Esprit  des  Lois,  Liv.  xix.  ch.  5 — 8)  expresses  his  own 
opinions.  '  Nature  compensates  for  everything.'  Many  smiled  contemp- 
tuously when  they  heard  people  talk  of  liberty  and  a  constitution. 
Montesquieu  had  said  that  a  free  nation  only  could  have  a  liberator, 
an  enslaved  nation  could  only  have  another  oppressor.  He  little  knew 
the  terrible  awakening  which  was  reserved  for  the  French  nation :  but  he 
was  probably  right  in  counselling  that  such  an  awakening  should  not  be 
anticipated  by  a  false  political  reformation.  |_The  reform  which  France 
wanted  was  a  social  one :  the  need  penetrated  to  the  very  roots  of  the  na- 
tion's life.  The  selfishness  and  cruelty  of  whole  classes  had  to  be  exorcised  : 
a  slumbering  nation  had  to  be  aroused  to  a  sense  of  political  duty.} 
It  is  hard  in  the  present  day  to  imagine  how  completely  public  spirit  had 
vanished  from  the  mass  of  the  French  nation,  and  how  utterly  void  the 
French  were  at  that  time  of  political  knowledge  or  experience.  Turgot 
was  as  solitary  a  being  in  France  as  if  his  lot  had  been  cast  in  the 
Sandwich  islands.  Except  a  few  men  of  the  type  of  Sieyes,  probably 
few  French  politicians  cared  for  politics  otherwise  than  as  an  amuse- 
ment, or  a  path  to  distinction.  The  Frenchman  was  repelled  by  what 
Burke  calls  the  '  severe  brow  of  moral  freedom.'  Voltaire  at  Ferney 
looked  on  the  political  affairs  of  Geneva  merely  as  a  matter  for  satire 
and  ridicule.  *  It  is  impossible,'  said  a  Frenchman  to  Groenfelt,  in  1789, 
'for  a  Frenchman  to  be  serious  :  we  must  amuse  ourselves,  and  in  pursuit 
of  our   amusements  we    continually  change    our    object,   but   those   very 

changes   prove  us  always  the  same Our  nation    is  naturally  gay. 

Political  liberty  requires  a  degree  of  seriousness,  which  is  not  in  our  cha- 
racter :  we  shall  soon  grow  sick  of  politics.'  (Letters  on  the  Revolution, 
p.  4.)  This  gay  incuriosity  is  still  the  characteristic  of  the  vast  majority; 
and  hence  France  has  ever  since  been,  though  in  a  diminishing  degree, 
the  prey  of  petty  and  interested  factions. 


INTRODUCTION.  xlv 

Tiers  Etat  with  the  Engh'sh  House  of  Commons '  is  typical  of  the 
whole  argument.  This  herd  of  country  clowns  and  pettifoggers, 
as  he  declares  it  to  have  been,  certainly  forms  an  effective  con- 
trast by  the  side  of  the  British  Parliament  in  the  days  of  Pitt  and 
Fox.  'We  trace  here  the  beginning  of  a  secondary  thread  of  sen- 
timent which  runs  quite  through  the  book.  A  sense  of  triumphant 
hostility  to  the  French  as  a  nation  had  been  produced  by  a  cen- 
tury of  international  relations :  and  Burke  could  hardly  avoid 
displaying  it  on  the  present  occasion.  His  purpose  was  not 
merely  to  instruct  the  French  nation,  but  to  humiliate,  if  not  to 
insult  it.  Englishmen  had  long  looked  on  the  French  as  a  nation 
of  slaves :  he  now  strove  to  show  that  a  nation  of  slaves  could 
produce  nothing  worthy  of  the  serious  attention  or  sympathy 
of  a  nation  of  freemen.")  Burke  might  have  taken  the  opportunity 
of  exhibiting  that  keen  sympathy  for  freedom  by  which  most  of 
his  political  career,  as  he  himself  declares  in  a  moment  of  com- 
punction '^,  had  been  guided.  ~]  He  knew  that  France  was  peopled 
by  a  race  as  oppressed  Sua  down-trodden  as  Ireland  or  India. 
Was  freedom  to  be  the  monopoly  of  England?  Had  Burke  no 
sympathy  for  any  sufferings  but  those  of  royalty  ?  Here  we 
touch  another  point  of  some  interest.  Popular  instinct  at  once  \ 
seized  on  Burke's  famous  description  of  the  transportation  to  1 
Paris  of  the  6th  of  October^  as  the  key  to  the  whole  M'ork. ,' 
That  picturesque  incident  had  inspired  the  jubilations  of  Dr.  \ 
Price*:  and  Burke  naturally  invested  it  at  once  with  the  very 
opposite  character.  But  his  description  was  borrowed  from 
prejudiced  witnesses.  The  people  still  trusted  the  King, 
however  much  they  may  have  distrusted  the  Queen  :  and  there 
was  nothing  extraordinary  in  their  insisting  on  the  abandonment 
of  Versailles.  Burke  frankly  admits  that  this  gloomy  foretaste  of 
the  change  in  the  royal  fortunes  coloured  his  whole  conception. 
Endowed  with  the  imagination  and  sensibility  of  the  poet,  this 
melodramatic  spectacle  sank  deeply  into  his  mind ;  and  the 
consciousness  that  it  yet  remained  undenounced  was  too  much 
for  one  ever  swayed,  as  Burke  was,  by 

*  .  .  stormy  pity,  and  the  cherished  lure 
Of  pomp,  and  proud  precipitance  of  soul\' 

*  Page  52.  «  Page  294.  ^  Page  84. 

*  Page  77,  s  Coleridge. 


xlvi  INTRODUCTION. 

Philip  Francis  at  once  declared  this  exhibition  of  sympathy  for 

\the  Qiieen  to  be  mere  affectation,  or  in  his  own  phrase, '  foppery.' 
He  knew  Burke  well ;  better,  perhaps,  than  any  contemporary : 
but  this  particular  charge  Burke  declared  to  be  false.  He  averred 
that  in  writing  this  famous  passage  tears  actually  dropped  from 
his  eyes,  and  wetted  the  paper.  It  is  likely  enough.  Burke 
carried  the  strong  feelings  which  were  natural  to  him  into  most 
things  that  he  did :  and  his  tears  for  ]\Iarie  Antoinette  were  as 
much  part  of  the  inspiration  of  the  moment  as  his  triumphant 
iieclaration,  when  his  own  lawful  sovereign  was  stricken  down  by 
/the  saddest  of  maladies,  that  'the  Almighty  had  hurled  him  from 
/  his  throne.'  Burke's  persistency  exposed  him  to  a  keen  repartee 
/  from  Francis.  'No  tears,'  wrote  the  latter,  'are  shed  for  nations.' 
This  was  altogether  unjust,  and  Francis  knew  it,  for  he  had  long 
been  associated  with  Burke  in  the  gigantic  effort  that  was  being 
made  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  oppressed  millions  of 
India  by  the  prosecution  of  Warren  Hastings.  But  it  was  in 
vain  to  beguile  Burke  from  his  chosen  attitude.  There  was  the 
tyranny  of  the  despot,  and  the  tyranny  of  the  mob:  and  he 
declared  that  it  was  his  business  to  denounce  the  one  as  well  as 
the  other.\lf  the  champion  of  Ireland  and  of  India  had  to  choose 
between  the  French  people  and  the  French  queen,  he  would 
choose  the  latter :  and  he  declared  that  history  would  confirm 
his  decision^.  It  has  not  been  so:  history  has  transferred  the 
worlds  sympathies,  engaged  for  a  while  on  the  opposite  side  by 
the  eloquence  of  Burke,  to  the  suffering  people.  Nor  can  it  be 
said  that  history  has  confirmed  Burke's  judgment  on  a  political 
question  which  he  treats  at  some  length,  and  which  concerned 
England  far  less  than  it  concerned  France.  The  Church  question, 
which  in  different  shapes  has  ever  since  the  French  Revolution 
vexed  the  \\  hole  Christian  world,  had  been  suddenly  raised  from  the 
level  of  speculation  to  that  of  policy  by  the  attempted  reforms  of 
Joseph  in  Austria.  It  needed  no  great  sagacity  to  foresee  the 
impending  storm,  when  the  ancient  principle  of  ecclesiastical 
establishments  was  repudiated  in  its  very  stronghold.  Burke 
here  carries  to  the  extreme  his  principle  of  saying  all  that  could 
be  said  in  favour  of  whichever  side  of  a  doubtful  question  is  most 
in  need  of  support.     Burke's  vindication  of  Church  establish- 

»  I'age  83. 


INTRODUCTION.  xlvH 

ments,  echoed,  as  it  has  been,  by  two  generations  of  obscurantists, 
is  based  on  half  a  dozen  bad  arguments  adroitly  wrought  into  the 
semblance  of  one  good  one.  But  no  logical  mystification  could 
avert  the  impending  ruin  :  and  Burke  committed  a  mistake  in 
parading  before  an  English  public  arguments  which  were  so  little 
likely  to  impose  upon  it.  (A  cotton-mill,  in  the  eyes  of  a  French 
economical  theorist,  might  be  an  institution  as  unproductive 
to  the  state  as  a  monastery  ^ :  but  no  Englishman  could  treat 
such  an  argument  with  respect.  [Devoted  pupils  of  the  school  of 
Bossuet  might  rejoice  to  hear  Burke's  fervid  eulogy  of  a  state 
consecrated,  in  all  its  members  and  functions,  by  a  National 
Church :  but  no  candid  Englishman  could  aver  that  Church  and 
State  were  ideas  inseparable  to  the  English  mind.  jThe  French 
ecclesiastic  mig'it  fairly  claim  as  private  property  the  estates  on 
which  his  order  had  thriven  unchallenged  ever  since  France  had 
been  a  nation :  no  reader  of  Selden  could  think  the  argument 
applicable  to  the  Church  of  England.  *  When  once  the  Common* 
wealth,'  says  Burke,  'has  established  the  estates  of  the«Church  as 
property,  it  can,  consistently,  hear  nothing  of  the  more  or  the 
less.'  Such  has  been  the  claim  of  the  clerical  party  in  every 
country  of  the  Western  world :  and  there  is  not  one  in  which  it 
has  been  accepted.  There  is  not  one  in  which  lawfulness  of  the 
secularization  of  Church  property  has  not  by  this  time  been 
practically  admitted.  Burke's  argument  is  confuted  by  each  suc- 
cessive step  of  that  long  series  of  unwillingly  enforced  reforms 
which  has  enabled  the  English  Church  to  stand  its  ground.  In 
reading  Burke's  account  of  the  Church  of  England,  we  must  bear 
in  mind  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  his  education.  Burke  was 
the  son  of  an  Irish  Catholic  and  an  Irish  Protestant.  He  was 
educated  by  a  Quaker :  and  by  trustworthy  testimony  ^  he  valued 
no  Christian  sect  above  another,  and  believed  iji_his  heart  that  no 
one  then  exMing  represented^  Christjanityjn  its  normal  or  final 
shapeT  Stoutly  as  he  had  opposed  the  famous  Latitudinarian 
petition  a  few  years  before,  Burke  was  in  all  religious  matters 
liberal  to  a  degree  which  trespassed  on  what  would  now  be  called 
rationalism.  His  picture  of  the  Church  is  really  painted  from  the 
outside :  and,  though  a  country  squire  of  a  quarter  of  a  century's 
standing,  it  is  from  the  outside  that  he  conducts  his  defence  of 
the  Establishment. 

'  Page  190,  *  That  of  his  schoolfellow  Shackleton. 


xlviii  INTRODUCTION. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  follow  Burke's  impatient  and  stormy 
career  over  the  whole  broad  field  of  his  '  Reflections.'  A  minute 
criticism  of  such  books  defeats  its  own  object.  Burke  is  here  an 
I  advocate  and  a  rhetorician.  Though  an  attitude  of  discursiveness 
land  informality,  admitting  of  striking  and  rapid  change,  is  of  the 
jessence  of  his  method,  there  are  many  isolated  passages  in  which 
jthis  is  less  apparent  than  usual,  and  these  passages  have  historical 
value.  jArmed  with  the  twofold  knowledge  of  history  and  of 
human  nature,  it  was  impossible  for  Burke  not  to  hit  the  mark  in 
many  of  his  minor  observations  on  the  course  of  events  in  France. 
His  description  of  the  growth  of  the  monied  interest,  of  the  hos- 
tility of  the  Paris  literary  cabal  to  the  Church,  and  of  the  coalition 
of  these  two  elements  for  its  destruction  ^,  stands  forth  as  a  bold 
and  accurate  outline  of  an  actual  process.  His  retrospect  of  the 
past  glories  of  France  ^  is  no  mere  exercise  in  declamation  :  and 
his  observations  on  the  government  of  Louis  XVI  '^  prove  that  he 
had  studied  antecedent  events  perhaps  as  accurately  as  to  an 
Englishma'h  was  possiblep>  Those  observations  are  illustrated  by 
the  circumstances  which  attended  the  Revolutions  of  1830  and 
1848.  A  mild  and  constitutional  regime,  as  Burke  concluded, 
predisposes  to  revolution :  if  this  regime  is  rudely  interrupted,  oT 
its  sincerity  rendered  doubtful,  a  revolution  is  certain.  No 
monarch  has  a  harder  part  to  play  than  a  king  of  France.  Under 
Louis  XVI,  Charles  X,  Louis  Philippe,  and  Louis  Napoleon,  the 
French  people  have  abundantly  proved  themselves  to  be  the  same. 
But  few  would  now  draw  from  the  fact  the  conclusion  which  was 
drawn  by  Burke.  An  unusual  show  of  '  patriotism,'  such  as 
Burke  praised  in  the  government  of  Louis,  afl!"ords  unusual  matter 
of  suspicion :  and  the  causes  of  a  restless  jealousy  for  liberty, 
which  Burke  had  exposed  so  admirably  in  his  speech  on  American 
Conciliation,  operated  as  surely  in  the  nascent  freedom  of  France 
as  in  the  ripe  liberty  of  America.PBurke  was  equally  correct  in 
auguring  an  alteration  in  the  internal  balance  of  power  in  France 
from  the  changes  introduced  into  the  army.  The  substitution  of 
a  popular  for  a  merely  mercenary  force  has  always  been  a  measure 
necessary  to  secure  great  political  reforms :  and  it  leads,  as  Burke 
pointed  out,  to  the  ascendancy  of  popular  generals.  There  is 
nothing  astonishing  in  this.     When  the  old  bonds  of  loyalty  are 

*  Page  128.  ^  Page  154.  '    Pag'es  97,  155. 


JA^  INTRODUCTION.       -"to.v^.vw-^  _/L 

as  thoroughly  worn  out  as  they  have  proved  to  be  in  France, 
military  genius,  allied  with  civil  prudence,  necessarily  becomes  the 
head  of  all  authority:  and  the  rise  of  Bonaparte  proved  the  truth 
of  Burke's  surmise^.  Burke  applied  his  knowledge  of  France 
and  French  policy  with  good  effect  in  turning  from  domestic  to 
colonial  policy  ^.  The  history  of  Hayti  amply  verified  all  that  he 
foretold  would  follow  on  the  assertion  of  the  rights  of  men  in  the 
French  colonies,  f  Hayti  asserted  its  right  to  a  constitution  and 
free  trade  :  and  as  the  colonists  rose  against  the  Government,  the 
negroes  rose  on  the  colonists.  Ten  years  later,  and  Burke  might 
have  written  a  telling  conclusion  to  the  tale  which  he  sketched 
out:  for  when  Republican  France  had  defeated  the  whole  of 
Europe,  she  was  herself  beaten  by  the  despised  negroes  of  the 
plantations.  Such  were  the  consequences  of  what  Burke  called 
*  attempting  to  limit  logic  by  despotism.'  \  Among  Burke's 
historical  forecasts  none  is  more  remarkable  than  that  which  re- 
lates to  the  organisation  throughout  Europe  of  secret  political 
societies'.  Contemporary  critics  laughed  the  argument  to  scorn; 
but  its  accuracy  is  testified  by  the  history  of  liberal  movements 
all  over  Catholic  Europe  and  America.  /  Thirty  years  more,  and 
the  world  rang  with  the  alarm.  It  was  by  the  aid  of  these 
secret  organisations  that  Mexico  and  South  America  threw  off 
the  yoke  of  the  priesthood.  We  know  the  history  of  similar 
clubs  in  Spain,  Italy,  and  Switzerland  between  1815  and  1848: 
and  the  great  power  for  attack  provided  by  these  means 
justifies  the  hostility  with  which  the  Catholic  Church  still  regards 
all  secret  organisations, 
^v-^- Perhaps  the  great  merit  of  Burke's  view  of  the  changes  in 
Trance  consisted  in  his  perception  of  their  actual  magnitude,  and  of 
the  new  character  which  they  were  likely  to  impress  upon  French 
policy.  He  was  right  in  supposing  that  revolutionised  France 
would  become  the  centre  of  a  revolutionary  propaganda,  and 
that  success  would  transform  the  representatives  of  French 
liberty  into  the  tyrants  of  Europe.  Burke  knew  well  how 
often  vanity  and  ambition  become  leading  motives  in  national 
action.  He  rightly  guessed  that  their  appetite  would  not  be 
satiated  by  mere  internal  successes,  and  that  the  conquest  of 
France  by  its  own  ambitious   citizens  would  be  only  the  first 

'  Page  260.  *  Page  263.  *  Page  183. 

VOL.   II.  d 


1  INTRODUCTION. 

in  a  series  of  revolutionary  triumphs.  Burke  rightly  judged  that 
the  spirits  of  the  old  despotism  and  of  the  new  liberty  were 
quite  capable  of  coalescing^  Under  the  Revolution  and  the 
Empire,  France  was  as  mucH  a  prey  to  the  lust  of  empire  as 
in  the  days  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth.  The  illusions  of  the  days 
of  the  Grand  Monarque  have  subsisted  indeed  down  to  our  own 
times,  not  only  undiminished,  but  vastly  heightened  by  the  events 
of  the  period  which  was  just  opening.  France  has  not  increased 
in  physical  resources  so  fast  as  her  neighbours:  and  her  com- 
parative weight  in  Europe  has  therefore  been  diminishing.  In 
proportion  as  this  fact  has  been  made  plain,  the  French  people 
have  resented  it :  and  until  very  recently  the  mass  of  the  people 
probably  believed  themselves  to  be  a  nation  as  powerful  in  the 
world  for  good  or  evil  as  in  the  days  of  the  First  Empire.  In 
England,  the  country  of  all  the  world,  whatever  else  may  be 
alleged  against  it,  where  illusions  are  fewest,  this  attitude  on  the 
part  of  her  near  neighbour  has  always  been  conspicuous. 

On  the  general  question  of  the  great  political  principle  involved 
/    in  the  present  volume  the  reader  may  safely  take  it  for  granted 
that  it  was  neither  true  in  itself  nor  natural  to  Burke,  who  was 
employing  it  merely  for  purposes  of  what  he  believed  to  be  legiti- 
mate advocacy.     Burke's  real  belief  is  contained  in  the  following 
passage  from  his  'Address  to  the  King  '  (1776) :  *  The  revolution 
is  a  departure  from  the  antient  course  of  descent  of  the  monarchy. 
The  people,  at  that  time,  entered  into  their  original  rights;  and  it 
was  not  because  a  positive  law  authorized  what  was  then  done, 
but  because  the  freedom  and  safety  of  the  subject,  the  origin  and 
i    cause  of  all  laws,  required  a  proceeding  paramount  and  superior 
I    to  them.     At  that  ever  remarkable  and  instructive  period,  the 
I   letter  of  the  law  was  suspended  in  favour  of  the  substance  of 
1   liberty.  .  .  .  Those  statutes  ha've  not  given  us  our  liberties  ;  our  liber - 
\  ties  ha've  produced  them.'     Coleridge  says  that  on  a  comparison  of 
\  Burke's  writings  on  the-  American  War  with  those  on  the  French 
Revolution,  the  principles  and  the  deductions  will  be  found  the 
same,  though  the  practical  inferences  are  opposite  ;  yet  in  both 
equally  legitimate,  and    in   both  equally  confirmed  by  results^. 
This  estimate  is  coloured  by  the  natural  sympathy  of  political 
partisanship.      Burke  was  always  Conservative  in  his  instincts: 

*  Biog.  Lit.  ch.  X  :  Friend,  Sect.  i.  Ess.  4, 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

but  it  is  undeniable  that  he  thought  the  present  a  legitimate  occa- 
sion for  shifting  his  ground.  LThe  historical  value  of  the  '  Re- 
flections'  is  thus  unequal  in  the  different  parts.  In  characterising 
English  political  instinct  and  doctrine,  it  falls  back  on  a  vanishing 
past ;  it  repudiates  that  which  possessed  life  and  growth.  It 
represents  the  sentimental  rather  than  the  intellectual  side  of  it^ 
author's  character :  and  hence  it  will  be  used  by  posterity  less  ajs 
an  historical  document  than  as  a  great  literary  model.  Burke,  in 
a  higher  degree  than  any  other  Englishman,  transferred  to  his 
writings  the  force  and  vigour  which  properly  belong  to  speeches ; 
and  there  is  scarcely  a  single  rhetorical  device  which  may  not  be 
learned  from  his  pages.  The  art  of  language  had  been  wrought 
by  thirty  years  of  incessant  practice  into  Burke's  very  soul :  and 
the  mere  voluntary  effort  of  expression  acted  upon  his  powers 
like  touching  the  spring  of  a  machine.  Burke  wrote  as  he  talked, 
and  as  he  spoke  in  the  senate :  we  have  here  the  man  himself 
accurately  reflected,  with  all  his  excellencies  and  all  his  imper- 
fections. Burke's  was  not  only  a  mind  large  and  spacious, 
but  endowed  with  an  extraordinary  degree  of  sensibility,  and 
these  qualities  were  well  adapted  to  produce  a  vast  convulsion 
of  feeling  at  the  contemplation  of  incidents  and  prospects  so 
strange  and  portentous  as  those  which  now  presented  them- 
selves to  view.  Burke's  was  a  mind  in  which  those  objects  sank 
most  deeply,  found  the  readiest  reception,  and  were  perceived 
in  their  widest  extent.  We  cannot  wonder  at  the  keenness  and 
profusion  of  the  sentiments  which  they  first  generated  and  then 
forced  out  trumpet-tongued  to  the  world. 

From  what  has  been  said  it  will  be  gathered  that  Burke's  book 
is  by  no  means  what  is  called  a  scientific  book.  Its  roots  touch 
the  springs  of  the  theology,  of  the  jurisprudence,  of  the  morals, 
of  the  history,  and  of  the  poetry  of  his  age :  and  in  this  way  it 
acquires  an  historical  value  resembling  in  some  measure  that  of 
the  famous  *  Republic '  of  Plato.  Few  books  reflect  more  com- 
pletely the  picture  of  European  thought  as  it  existed  a  century 
ago.  Nor  is  there  any  in  which  the  literary  expression  of  the  age 
is  better  exemplified.  Burke  is  careful  to  maintain  a  mode  of 
expression  which  is  untechnical.  It  is  even  occasionally  inde- 
finite. The  essential  antithesis  in  thought  between  science  and 
poetry  is  curiously  reflected  in  his  habitual  language.  In  em- 
ploying words,  he  does  not,  like   the   man  of  science,  keep  in 

d2 


Hi  INTRODUCTION. 

mind,  in  connection  with  them,  any  certain  and  invariable  con- 
notation. Like  the  poet,  he  rather  takes  pleasure  in  placing  old 
words  in  new  combinations,  and  in  applying  them  with  a  changed 
or  reinforced  meaning. 

•Dixeris  egregie,  notum  si  callida  verbum 
Reddiderit  junctura  novum.' 

*  To  think  with  the  wise,  and  to  speak  with  the  vulgar,  to  give 
in  common  and  popular  phrase  the  results  of  uncommon  and 
studious  thought,  has  always  been  counted  among  the  rarest  of 
rare  accomphshments.  A  critic  has  observed  that  the  main 
difference  between  our  older  and  our  modern  literature,  is  that 
in  ^he  former  we  get  uncommon  ideas  vulgarly  expressed,  and 
in  the  latter  obvious  and  commonplace  thoughts  furnished  forth 
with  false  ornament,  and  inspired  with  false  refinement.  Now  as 
Burke  often  conveys  his  most  admirable  lessons  under  the  guise 
of  trite  and  vulgar  topics,  so  does  he  clothe  his  most  cogent 
arguments  with  the  plainest  language,  and  support  them  by  the 
most  familiar  illustrations.  But  he  continually  surprises  us  by 
bursts  of  rhetorical  appeal,  by  sudden  allusions  to  some  his- 
torical incident,  by  keen  sarcasm,  by  a  quotation  which  recalls 
a  train  of  associations.  Macaulay  has  characterised  the  contents 
of  Burke's  mind  as  a  treasure  at  once  rich,  massy,  and  various. 
Burke's  mature  style  reflects  the  rich  contents  of  his  mature 
mind,  as  displayed  in  daily  conversation.  Burke,  who  was, 
by  the  testimony  of  Johnson,  the  greatest  master  of  con- 
versation in  his  time,  wrote  as  he  talked,  because  he  talked 
I  as  the  greatest  master  of  writing  need  not  be  ashamed  to 
I  write.  He  is  a  standing  example  of  that  fundamental  axiom  of 
I  style,  too  often  forgotten  by  writers,  that  its  excellence  chiefly 
I  depends  on  the  closeness  with  which  it  reflects  the  excellences  of 
\  the  "VOX  viva.  A  'good  passage  '  is  simply  one  which,  if  delivered 
>  by  the  speaker  to  an  attentive  listener,  would  easily,  certainly, 
and  lastingly  convey  to  the  latter  the  meaning  of  the  former. 
Men  in  general  are  neither  scientific  nor  political :  they  are 
simply  open  to  be  impressed  by  clear  statement,  fair  argument, 
and  common  sense.  In  the  practice  of  the  best  masters  what 
seem  to  be  the  ornaments  of  style  are  really  its  necessities.  Figures 
and  images  do  not  belong  to  poetry,  but  to  language — especially 
to  the  economy  of  language.     It  is  possible  to  be  lavish  and 


INTRODUCTION.  liii 

fertile  in  the  development  and  illustration  of  an  argument,  with 
great  poverty  of  resources ;  but  he  who  would  be  brief  must  be 
wealthy  in  words.  Those  who  have  tasted  the  enjoyment  of 
fine  conversation,  know  how  nearly  Burke  reflects  its  essential 
manner.  What  is  meant  may  be  illustrated  by  saying  that  the 
great  master  of  conversation  avoids,  tanquam  scopulum,  the  odious 
vice  which  is  commonly  described  as  '  talking  like  a  book ' ; 
whereas  the  great  master  of  the  pen  does  in  fact  employ  in 
turn  all  the  methods  and  devices  which  a  versatile  mind  and 
a  practised  tongue  employ  in  conversation. 

English  and  French  literature  have  generally  aimed  at  this 
character.  When  we  pass  to  the  yard-long  sentences,  the 
tangled  notions,  and  the  flat  expression  of  an  ordinary  German 
book,  we  recognise  the  normal  opposite.  How  is  this?  In  the 
latter  case  the  book  has  probably  been  written  by  a  man  of 
silent  habits  in  the  retirement  of  his  cabinet ;  and  there  is 
consequently  no  habitual  subordination,  in  the  practice  of 
the  writer,  to  the  conditions  of  convenient  and  intelligent  recep- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  reader.  Why  are  chapters,  paragraphs, 
sentences,  and  phrases  measured  by  a  certain  average  of  length  ? 
Simply  on  the  principle  which  regulates  how  much  a  man  can  or 
ought  to  be  eating  or  drinking  at  one  time.  The  habits  of 
Reception  (or  as  the  Scotch  philosophers  call  it.  Attention)  and 
Assimilation  proceed  by  morceaux  or  portions.  It  can  make 
no  difference  whether  the  material  is  conveyed  through  the 
voice  of  another,  or  in  a  way  at  once  more  complex  and 
more  compendious,  through  the  eye  of  the  recipient.  Burke's 
age,  like  Cicero's,  was  eminently  an  age  of  Conversation.  A 
glance  at  Boswell  is  enough  to  prove  its  high  range  as  a  fine  art, 
and  to  show  how  much  it  had  assumed  a  palaestral  character. 
Literary  fame  was  distributed  by  a  few  men,  who  habitually 
weighed  merit  in  a  common-sense  balance :  and  the  atmosphere 
of  the  study  thus  came  to  be  neglected  for  that  of  the  club. 
The  influence  of  academical  models  had  long  ago  begun  to  yield 
to  that  of  keen  living  criticism :  and  in  the  age  of  Johnson  the 
change  was  well-nigh  complete.  The  conditions  of  the  best 
literary  age  of  Greece,  including  a  cultivated  and  watchful 
auditory  leading  the  opinion  of  the  general  public,  were  thus 
nearly  reproduced. 

Writing  is  false  and  poor  in  proportion  as  those  conditions  are 


liv  INTRODUCTION. 

forgotten.  Moreover,  as  composition  is  built  upon  spoten 
language,  so  the  decline  of  the  art  of  conversation  has  been 
accompanied  by  the  decline  of  style.  A  century  has  pro- 
duced vast  changes  in  both.  Every  one  who  knows  how 
perfect  a  harmony  subsists  between  or  among  the  two  or 
more  people  who  engage  in  true  intellectual  converse  —  how 
unconsciously  and  how  delicately  each  responds  to  the  touches 
of  the  other,  knows  also  how  exceedingly  rare  is  the  habit  which 
produces  it.  The  coarse  deluge  with  which  the  pretentious 
sophist,  whom  in  the  person  of  Thrasymachus  Socrates  com- 
pares to  a  bath'mg-ma7i,  still  overwhelms  his  hearers — the  jar  and 
wrangle  proper  to  the  Bar,  and  the  prating  of  the  foolish,  con- 
spire to  thrust  it  from  society.  So  is  it  of  the  harmony  which 
ought  to  subsist  between  writers  and  their  probable  readers: 
and  the  social  defect  is  reflected  in  the  literary.  Literature  has 
become  divorced  from  life,  and  the  very  term  *  literary '  comes 
to  connote  something  dull,  dry,  and  undesirable.  If  we  wish  to 
see  how  life  and  letters  can  nevertheless  go  together,  we  have  to 
refer  to  the  De  Oratore  of  Cicero,  the  Table  Talk  of  Selden, 
and  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson. 

The  model  of  a  letter,  the  form  into  which  the  present  work, 
like  nearly  all  Burke's  best  compositions,  is  cast,  gives  the  writer 
some  valuable  advantages.  It  represents  a  convenient  medium 
between  the  looseness  of  common  talk  and  the  set  phrases  of 
deliberate  composition.  It  enables  him  to  preserve  an  even  key 
through  the  body  of  his  observations,  while  he  may,  with  perfect 
propriety,  descend  to  familiar  and  pointed  phraseology,  or  mount 
at  will  into  the  region  of  rhetoric.  Such  a  variety  at  once  pre- 
serves that  impression  of  a  close  relation  between  the  reader  and 
the  writer  which  is  necessary  to  secure  attention,  and  enables 
the  writer  to  make  the  best  use  of  his  opportunities.  Where  he 
fancies  the  reader  yielding  to  a  plain  forcible  piece  of  common 
sense,  he  can  press  on.  He  can  repeat  the  approved  thesis  in 
some  more  studied  phrase,  approaching  the  philosophical  style, 
and  finally  enforce  it  by  a  bold  appeal  to  the  feelings.  He  can 
gradually  season  and  mingle  his  rhetoric  with  the  gall  of  irony,  or 
he  can  abruptly  drop  into  that  stimulating  vein  at  a  moment's 
notice.  Probably  the  greatest  impression  of  power  in  the  mind 
of  the  reader  is  produced  by  the  ability  to  preserve  an  even 
balance  of  moderate  discourse,  ever  and  anon  varied  by  these 


INTRODUCTION.  IV 

occasional  diversions.  Perpetual  familiarities,  perpetual  didactics, 
or  perpetual  declamation  would  equally  disgust  and  fatigue.  The 
great  artist  so  mingles  them  that  each  shall  mutually  relieve  and 
enhance  the  effect  of  the  other. 

In  the  study  of  particular  passages,  it  must  be  remarked 
that  there  is  no  mastering  the  secrets  of  style  by  the  eye  alone. 
The  student  must  read  aloud,  repeat  to  himself,  and  transcribe. 
The  fact  is  so  much  testimony  to  our  canon  that  the  standard  of 
writing  is  the  -vox  -vi-va.  It  is  necessary  to  make  a  strong  effort 
of  imagination,  to  force  one's-self  into  the  author's  own  place,  and 
to  construct  over  again  his  phrases  and  periods,  if  we  would  view 
his  work  in  its  full  beauty  and  propriety. 

Let  us  examine,  as  an  example  of  Burke's  method,  his  remarks 
on  the  New  Year's  Address  presented  to  Louis  XVI.  They 
conclude  with  the  following  paragraph: 

*  A  man  is  fallen  indeed,  when  he  is  thus  flattered.   The  anodyne  : 
draught  of  oblivion,  thus  drugged,  is  well  calculated  to  preserve  \ 
a  galling  wakefulness,  and  to  feed  the  living  ulcer  of  a  corroding    \ 
memory.      Thus    to   administer   the  opiate  potion  of  amnesty, 
powdered  with  all  the  ingredients  of  scorn  and  contempt,  is  to 
hold  to  his  lips,  instead  of  "  the  balm  of  hurt  minds,"  the  cup  of 
human  misery  full  to  the  brim,  and  to  force  him  to  drink  it  to 
the  dregs.'   (p.  83.) 

The  exceeding  strength  and  fulness  of  these  lines  depend  on 
the  fact  that  every  word  in  them,  saving  mere  auxiliaries,  re- 
presents a  distinct  image.  When  we  apply  to  them  Burke's  well-  • 
known  canon  that  the  master  sentence  of  every  paragraph  should 
involve,  firstly,  a  thought,  secondly,  an  image,  and  thirdly,  a  senti- 
ment, we  see  how  all  such  canons  fail.  The  thought  and  the 
sentiment  are  clear  enough,  but  they  are  completely  enveloped 
in  this  congeries  of  images.  Turning  back,  however,  we  shall 
see  how  it  is  prepared  for  in  the  preceding  pages.  The  Address 
is  introduced  at  the  end  of  a  previous  paragraph  (p.  82),  as  the 
climax  of  a  sustained  rhetorical  arsis.  Pausing  to  give  this  striking 
feature  its  due  effect,  the  writer  then  drops  suddenly  in  a  fresh  j' 
paragraph  into  a  vein  of  irony,  bitter  and  elaborate,  but  not  j 
strongly  coloured.  In  fact,  both  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  f 
this  paragraph  are  relieved  by  something  approaching  very  nearly  ] 
to  a  quaint  equivocation.  It  is  slightly  prosaic,  diffuse,  and  familiar,  j 
We  have  another  pause,  and  another  change.    The  writer  gathers  i 


Ivi  INTR  OB  UCTION. 

himself  up  for  a  strong  effort,  and  pours  out,  in  these  half-a-dozen 
lines,  a  series  of  images  coloured  with  all  the  depth  which  words 
can  give,  destined  to  unite  with  and  deepen  the  effect  of  the 
preceding  periods.  The  three  paragraphs  are,  as  it  were,  in  three 
keys  of  colour,  one  over  the  other,  the  deepest,  the  most  vigorous, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  most  sparingly  applied,  coming  last. 
Burke  does  not  in  general  severely  tax  the  memory.  He  may 
expect  you  to  carry  your  vision  through  a  dozen  pages,  but  he 
1/  lends  you  every  assistance  that  art  can  give.  He  puts  his  most 
striking  images  last,  that  the  reader  may  pause  upon  them,  and 
see  how  they  sum  up  and  illustrate  his  previous  argument.  If 
this  volume  is  opened  at  p.  112,  the  three  terminations  of  the 
paragraphs,  though  in  each  case  he  ends  with  an  image,  will 
curiously  illustrate  the  variety  of  his  resources. 

Let  us  see  again  how  an  image  is  varied,  another  is  grafted 
upon  it,  and  it  disappears  in  the  vein  of  pure  irony  to  which  it  is 
intended  to  conduct : — 

*  The  ears  of  the  people  of  England  are  distinguishing.  They 
hear  these  men  speak  broad.  Their  tongue  betrays  them  ^  Their 
language  is  in  the  patois  of  fraud ;  in  the  cant  and  gibberish  of 
hypocrisy.  The  people  of  England  must  think  so,  when  these 
praters  affect  to  carry  back  the  clergy  to  that  primitive  evangelic 
poverty,'  &c.  (p.  123.) 

y  Burke  excels  in  this  preparation  of  transitions :  and  it  always 
olstinguishes  the  master.  The  passage  on  the  Queen  (p.  89),  which 
is  perhaps  the  most  famous  in  the  book,  is  intended  in  this  way. 
It  fitly  concludes  the  reflections  on  the  sufferings  of  the  Royal 
Family,  and  prepares  the  way  for  the  animated  contrast  which 
follows  of  ancient  and  modern  modes  of  social  and  political  feeling. 
In  these  pages  (90-92)  we  observe  Burke's  happiest  manner,  that 
progressive  and  self-developing  method  which  distinguishes  him 
among  prose  writers,  as  it  does  Dryden  among  poets.  *  His 
thesis  grows  in  the  very  act  of  unfolding  it  '^.'  Each  sentence 
seems,  by  a  kind  of  scintillation,  to  suggest  the  image  contained 
in  the  next;  and  this  again  instantly  flames  and  germinates  into 
a  crowd  of  others.  There  is  no  loss,  however,  of  the  ultimate 
aim,  and  the  rich  fancy  never  gets,  so   to  speak,  out  of  hand  1 

*  Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  190, 1.  19, 

*  De  Quincey. 


INTR  OD  UCTION.  1  vii 

or  seems  to  burst  into  mere  wanton  coruscations.  The  boldest 
strokes  come  in  exactly  in  the  right  places,  and  we  acquiesce  in 
the  judgment  with  which  the  strain  on  our  imagination  is  duly 
relaxed,  and  we  are  allowed  to  relapse  into  the  strain  of  plain 
statement  and  direct  argument.  '  Burke,'  says  Hazlitt,  '  is  really 
one  of  the  severest  of  writers.'  Even  in  his  half-prophetic 
mood  we  never  miss  a  certain  understood  calmness,  and  a  back- 
ground of  self-restraint  and  coolness :  there  is  always  a  principle 
of  restoration  in  the  opposite  direction.  *  In  the  very  whirlwind 
of  his  passion  he  begets  a  temperance.'  To  this  effect  his  habit 
of  repetition  very  much  contributes.  He  produces  the  same 
thought,  first  expanded  and  illustrated  with  all  his  imagery,  then 
contracted  and  weighed  with  all  his  sententiousness.  Fulness 
and  brevity,  ardour  and  philosophical  calm,  light  and  shade,  are 
ever  alternating. 

In  style,  as  in  everything  else,  the  nature  of  things  is  best  seen 
in  their  smallest  proportions.  The  best  writers  are  immediately 
discernible  by  their  mere  phrases,  by  the  ability  and  the  happiness 
with  which  they  conjoin  the  simple  elements  of  substantive  and 
verb,  adjective  or  participle.  It  is  not  that  words  are  coerced 
into  a  strange  collocation,  or  that  the  writer  '  will  for  a  tricksy 
phrase  defy  the  matter ' ;  but  that  expressions  are  constructed 
which  seem  natural,  without  being  common  or  obvious.  Not- 
withstanding the  depth  and  rapidity  of  the  current  of  Burke's 
ideas,  it  flows  in  general  as  clear  as  if  it  were  the  shallowest  of  rills. 
Still,  the  freedom  with  which  he  employs  his  extraordinary  copia 
•verhorum  occasionally  leads  him  into  obscurity.  One  passage 
has  been  often  marked  as  an  instance.  It  occurs  near  the  end 
of  the  book  (p.  291),  where  it  is  remarked  that  the  little  arts  and 
devices  of  popularity  are  not  to  be  condemned : 

*  They  facilitate  the  carrying  of  many  points  of  moment ;  they 
keep  the  people  together  ;  they  refresh  the  mind  in  its  exertions ; 
and  they  diifuse  occasional  gaiety  over  the  severe  brow  of  moral 
freedom.' 

The  last  sentence  has  been  confidently  pronounced  to  be 
nonsense  in  the  strict  acceptance  of  the  word — that  is,  to  have 
no  meaning,  and  to  be  neither  true  nor  false.  The  obscurity 
lies  in  the  involution,  in  an  abbreviated  form,  of  a  statement 
which  occurs  at  page  forty-four,  that  all  nations  but  France  had 


Iviii  INTRODUCTION. 

begun  political  reformation  in  a  serious  and  even  severe  temper. 
'  All  other  people  have  laid  the  foundations  of  civil  freedom  in 
severer  manners,  and  a  system  of  more  austere  and  masculine 
morality.'  France,  on  the  other  hand,  doubled  the  licence  of  her  . 
ferocious  dissoluteness  in  manners.  The  contrast,  in  the  passage 
criticisedj  is  between  the  political  licence  of  the  demagogues  of 
France,  and  the  occasional  condescension  of  the  more  austere 
English  patriot  to  the  humours  of  his  constituents '.  It  is  not 
denied  that  Burke  wrote,  in  the  first  instance,  hastily,  and  that 
there  are  occasional  blemishes  in  this  book ;  but  most  of  them 
disappeared  before  it  issued  from  the  press.  Page  sixty-eight, 
for  instance,  was  amended  after  the  first  edition,  and  might  have 
been  amended  somewhat  more.  Burke  was,  however,  averse 
from  making  any  important  alterations,  and  he  refused  to  correct 
some  palpable  errors,  on  the  ground  of  their  non-importance. 
He  himself  considered  that  he  had  elaborated  the  work  with  even 
more  than  his  habitual  carefulness  of  composition ;  and  it  is 
known  that  large  portions  of  it  were  recomposed,  and  the  whole 
subjected  to  a  never-satisfied  revision,  which  excited  the  remon- 
strances of  his  printer.  '  The  fragments  of  his  manuscripts  which 
remain,'  says  Dr.  Croly  ^,  '  show  that  not  words  but  things  were 
the  objects  of  his  revision.  At  every  fresh  return  some  fine  idea 
found  enlargement ;  some  strong  feeling  was  invigorated ;  some 
masculine  moral  was  aggrandised  into  universal  application,  and 
coloured  into  poetic  beauty.'  The  blemishes  which  are  still  left 
are  partially  shielded  by  the  extraordinary  compass  of  Burke's 
writing.  His  great  art  and  originality  in  putting  together  his 
phrases  and  sentences  makes  even  his  negligence  seem  less  than  it 
really  is.  We  are  often  tempted  to  think  that  his  most  heedless 
combinations  are  rather  studied  than  spontaneous.  It  cannot, 
however,  escape  notice,  that  the  workmanship  of  the  treatise  is 


'  Bristle,  in  his  dialogue  with  Sir  Edward  Courtly,  describes  the  old  prac- 
tice in  less  plausible  terms :  '  I  think,  Sir,  that  it's  very  civil  of  you  to  come 
and  spend  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand  pounds,  besides  being  obliged  to 
keep  company  with  a  parcel  of  dirty,  drunken,  ill-mannered  fellows  for  two 
or  three  months  together,  without  any  other  design  but  serving  your  country.' 
The  Craftsman,  No.  58.  '  Drunkenness,  rioting,  and  insolence,  on  the  one 
side,  abject  flattery,  cringing  and  preposterous  adulation  on  the  other,'  was 
the  true  meaning  of  the  '  little  arts  and  devices  of  popularity.' 

*  Memoir  of  Burke,  vol,  i.  p.  292, 


INTR  OB  UCTION.  Ux 

very  unequal.  Burke  always  relied  much  upon  correction,  and 
extensively  pruned  and  altered  his  first  draughts.  On  the  strength 
of  many  marks  of  carelessness  which  this  process  has  left  on  the 
face  of  the  work,  it  has,  from  the  merely  literary  point  of  view, 
been  undervalued.  Francis  (Junius)  wrote  to  Burke  ',  '  Why  will 
you  not  learn  that  polish  is  material  to  preservation  ?  .  .  .  I  wish 
you  would  let  me  teach  you  to  write  English  ! '  Such  expressions 
from  Francis  were  mere  impudence.  It  has  been  well  remarked 
that  conpared  to  the  athletic  march  of  the  writings  of  Burke, 
the  best  letters  of  Junius  remind  us  irresistibly  of  the  strut  of 
a  petit-maitre.  It  is  the  ramp  of  the  lion  by  the  side  of  the 
mordacious  snarl  of  the  cur.  Of  literature,  in  the  highest 
sense,  Francis  knew  next  to  nothing.  He  represented,  however, 
in  some  measure  those  current  canons  of  literary  taste  which 
Burke  recklessly  broke  through.  But  let  it  be  remembered  that 
Burke  was  not  writing  as  an  aspirant  for  literary  or  any  other 
fame.  It  was  not  for  this  that  day  after  day  saw  him  dashing  off 
these  pages  in  his  gloomy  room  in  gloomy  Gerard  Street.  The 
objects  of  earlier  years  had  sunk  below  his  horizon,  and  the  fame 
of  his  book  came  as  a  mere  corollary.  What  he  wrote  was  the 
result  of  a  mental  convulsion,  vast,  though  spontaneous.  He 
alludes  to  it  in  his  correspondence  as  '  deeply  occupying  and 
agitating  him.'  His  nerves  were  strung  up  to  the  pitch  of  the 
highest  human  sympathies.  Tears,  he  averred,  dropped  from  his 
eyes  and  wetted  his  paper  as  he  wrote  the  passage  on  the  Queen, 
which  Mackintosh  called  '  stuff,'  and  Francis  '  foppery.'  Burke 
was  a  man  of  strong  passions,  and  these  passions  mingled  fiercely 
in  all  his  pursuits. 

Anger  is  said  to  '  make  dull  men  witty  '^.'  In  excess,  it  far 
more  frequently  paralyses  the  intellect,  or  drives  a  man  into 
mere  verbal  excesses. 

'  Some  fierce  thing,  replete  with  too  much  rage, 
Whose  strength's  abundance  weakens  his  own  heart '.' 

If  Burke's  wrath  sometimes  lost  him  personal  respect,  and  occa- 
sionally hurried  him  into  grossness  of  metaphor,  it  gave  such 

^  Correspondence  of  Burke,  vol.  iii.  p.  164. 

*  Bacon    records   this   as  a  repartee  of  Queen   Elizabeth  to  an  insolent 
courtier.     She  sarcastically  added — '  but  it  keeps  them  poor.' 
^  Shakespeare,  Sonnet  xxiii. 


Ix  INTRODUCTION. 

terrible  fire  to  his  expression,  that  the  gain  was  greater  than  the 
loss.  It  scathed  like  lightning  the  men,  the  systems,  or  the 
sentiments  which  were  the  objects  of  his  moral  indignation,  and 
marked  indelibly  those  who  had  incurred  his  personal  resent- 
ment. The  tension  and  force  gained  from  anger  seemed  often 
to  sustain  his  style  long  after  his  direct  invective  had  ceased. 
Though  high-tempered,  he  seems  to  have  been  free  from  the 
sort  of  ill-nature  which  indeed  belongs  to  colder  temperaments, 
noticeable  in  Swift  and  Junius.  Even  in  the  case  of  political 
opponents,  he  was  almost  universally  a  lenient  and  generous 
judge.  His  anger  towards  those  who  had  excited  it,  if  not  abso- 
lutely just,  was  felt  to  be  the  result  of  his  own  full  conviction, 
and  so  carried  with  him  the  sympathy  of  his  hearers  and  readers, 
instead  of  exciting  them,  as  is  usually  the  case,  to  seek  excuses 
for  his  victims.  It  is  rare  for  so  much  force  to  produce  so  little 
reaction.  Burke  sways  the  mass  of  intelligent  and  cultivated 
readers  with  almost  as  little  resistance  as  a  demagogue  ex- 
periences from  a  mob  ^. 

Burke  suffers  no  sense  of  literary  formality  to  veil  and  to  break 
the  force  of  his  thoughts.  He  strives  to  stand  face  to  face 
with  the  reader,  as  he  would  stand  before  a  circle  of  listening 
friends,  or  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons.  To  repeat  a 
previous  observation,  Burke  wrote  as  he  talked.  *  Burke's  talk,' 
Johnson  used  to  say,  '  is  the  ebullition  of  his  mind ;  he  does  not 
talk  from  a  desire  of  distinction,  but  because  his  mind  is  full.' 
As  a  mark  of  his  style,  this  naturally  has  the  effect  of  investing 
his  chief  writings  with  something  of  a  dramatic  character.  They 
possess  something  of  what  we  mean  when  we  ascribe  to  works  of 
art  a  general  dramatic  unity.  The  statesman  and  the  man  are  so 
finely  blended  in  the  contexture  of  his  thought  that  it  is  diflicult 

*  For  this  paragraph,  for  that  which  commences  at  the  ninth  line  of 
page  Ixviii,  and  for  many  of  the  Notes  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  the  Editor  is 
indebted  to  the  accompHshed  pen  of  John  Frederick  Boyes,  Esq.  It  may  be 
added  that  Burke  was  deeply  offended  at  the  neglect  his  views  from  the  first 
met  with  in  the  English  political  world.  '  Pique,'  says  Sir  G.  Savile,  in  a 
letter  to  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham,  '  is  one  of  the  strongest  motives  in  the 
human  mind.  Fear  is  strong,  but  transient.  Interest  is  more  lasting, 
perhaps,  and  steady,  but  infinitely  weaker ;  I  will  ever  back  pique  against 
them  both.  It  is  the  spur  the  Devil  rides  the  noblest  tempers  with,  and  will 
do  more  work  with  them  in  a  week,  than  with  other  poor  jades  in  a  twelre- 
moatb.' 


INTRODUCTION.  Ixi 

to  distinguish  between  warp  and  woof.  This  character  is  re- 
flected not  obscurely  in  his  diction.  In  discussions  upon  literary- 
matters,  he  was  fond  of  pointing  out  the  dramatic  writer  as  the 
true  model,  instancing  Plautus,  Terence,  and  the  fragments  of 
Publius  Syrus  as  among  the  best  examples.  The  hint  was  the 
more  applicable  in  an  age  when  the  theatre  was  still  a  great 
school  of  style  and  of  manners.  Junius,  as  is  well  known, 
modelled  his  letters  on  the  pointed  dialogue  of  Congreve.  Burke 
was  familiar  with  the  lessons  of  a  higher  school.  Humble,  from 
the  aesthetic  point  of  view,  as  is  the  work  of  a  political  writer, 
there  is  often  an  almost  Shakespearian  freshness  and  originality 
about  the  mintage  of  Burke's  phrases,  and  the  design  of  his 
paragraphs.  In  reading  him  we  are  less  than  usually  conscious 
of  the  mere  literary  element.  Burke,  in  fact,  though  commonly 
understood  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  masters  of  English  prose, 
does  not  fall  naturally  into  a  place  in  any  historical  series  of  the 
masters  of  the  art.  The  Spectator  seems  to  have  been  his 
early  model,  the  Treatise  on  the  Sublime  and  Beautiful  being 
evidently  suggested  by  Addison's  beautiful  and  original  essays  on 
the  Pleasures  of  the  Imagination.  But  he  soon  deserted  the 
school  of  polite  prose.  Hume,  on  the  other  hand,  is  an  instance 
of  an  accomplished  writer,  who  throughout  his  long  labours  never 
cast  the  slough  of  his  first  style.  Wholly  disregarding  the  models 
of  the  strict,  polished,  and  academic  writers  of  his  day,  Burke 
fell  back  upon  a  free  and  expansive  method,  which  reminds  us  of 
the  great  poet  and  dramatist,  Dryden.  The  fact  that  no  student 
of  literature  now  thinks  of  consulting  Temple  or  Sprat,  while 
such  prose  as  that  of  Dryden  and  Cowley  still  retains  a  large 
measure  of  popularity,  is  some  testimony  to  the  correctness  of 
his  taste.  The  father  of  modern  criticism  had  not  been  neglected 
by  Burke,  and  the  freedom  and  copiousness  of  Dryden's  pen 
cannot  have  escaped  his  notice.  He  still  remains  the  great 
master  of  good  pedestrian  prose ;  and  for  the  best  specimens  of 
the  somewhat  more  elevated  key  of  political  reasoning,  we  are 
still  obliged  to  recur  to  Bolingbroke,  another  of  Burke's  models. 
In  both  Bolingbroke  and  Burke  the  habit  of  public  speaking 
moulded  and  transformed  their  literary  style :  and  we  can 
scarcely  point  to  any  other  writer  who,  though  at  once  accurate, 
polished,  and  striking,  reflects  Burke's  disregard  of  the  set 
literary  manner.     Addison  must  have   proceeded   to  compose 


Ixii  INTRODUCTION. 

a  Spectator  much  as  he  was  wont  to  set  about  making  a 
copy  of  his  inimitable  Latin  verses;  and  something  of  the 
same  kind  never  forsook  Johnson,  and  other  great  essayists. 
Burke  has  nothing  of  this.  He  goes  back,  though  not  con- 
sciously, over  the  heads  of  his  contemporaries.  He  writes 
with  the  tone  of  authoritative  speech.  He  employs  alternately 
the  profound,  stately,  philosophical  manner  of  Hooker^,  the 
imaginative  declamation  of  Taylor,  the  wise  sarcasm  of  South, 
and  the  copious  and  picturesque  facility  of  Dryden.  We 
need  not  maintain  that  elements  so  multifarious  never  suffer 
in  his  hands.  Burke  lived  in  a  time  when  literary  ideals 
had  degenerated.  Both  Hooker  and  Bacon  —  the  former 
with  his  vast  cycle  of  reasoning  and  his  unapproachable 
compass  of  language,  the  latter  with  his  dense,  serried  body 
of  picked  thought  and  his  powerful  concocting  and  assimilating 
style,  represent  a  literary  attitude  which  neither  Burke  nor 
any  of  his  contemporaries  ever  dreamed  of  assuming.  Burke, 
moreover,  in  his  maturity,  cared  nothing  for  literature,  except 
so  far  as  it  was  useful  in  its  effect  on  life ;  nor  did  he  cherish 
the  thought  of  living  in  his  works. 

These  pages  are  intended  rather  to  put  many  threads  of  inde- 
pendent study  into  the  hands  of  the  student,  and  to  afford  hints 
for  looking  at  the  subject  on  many  sides,  than  to  exhaust  any 
department  of  it.  Burke's  works  Will  be  found  to  be  at  once 
a  canon  or  measure  to  guide  those  who  will  undertake  the 
pleasurable  toil  of  exploring  the  inexhaustible  field  of  English 
prose-writing,  and  in  themselves  a  rich  mine  of  the  most  useful 
practical  examples.  They  strikingly  illustrate,  among  other 
things,  the  fact  that  the  works  of  a  great  writer  of  prose,  like 
those  of  great  poets,  must,  so  to  speak,  drain  a  large  area.  He 
must  possess  something  of  the  myriad-mindedness  which  has 
been   ascribed,   as  the   sum  and   substance   of  his   intellectual 

*  In  a  debate  after  the  riots  of  1780,  Burke  adverted  to  his  early  education 
at  the  school  of  Mr.  Shackleton.  '  Under  his  eye  I  have  read  the  Bible, 
morning,  noon,  and  night,  and  have  ever  since  been  the  happier  and  better 
man  for  such  reading.  I  afterwards  turned  my  attention  to  the  reading  of 
all  the  theological  publications  on  all  sides,  which  were  written  with  such 
wonderful  ability  in  the  last  and  present  centuries.  But,  finding  at  length 
that  such  studies  tended  to  confound  and  bewilder  rather  than  enlighten, 
1  dropped  them,  embracing  and  holding  fast  a  firm  faith  in  the  Church  of 
England.' 


INTR  OD  UCTION.  Ixiii 

qualities,  to  Shakespeare.  'The  understanding,'  says  Shelley, 
'  grows  bright  by  gazing  upon  many  truths.'  In  like  manner 
the  taste  is  only  to  be  justly  regulated  by  applying  it  to  many 
and  various  beauties,  and  the  judgment  is  only  to  be  ripened 
by  directing  it  in  succession  upon  many  objects,  and  in  various 
aspects. 

With  one  additional  observation  on  a  point  of  some  moment, 
these  hints  on  the  general  intention  and  style  of  Burke's  book 
are  terminated.  It  has  been  said  that  the  best  styles  are  the 
freest  from  Latinisms,  and  it  has  been  laid  down  that  a  good 
writer  will  never  have  recourse  to  a  Latinism  while  a  '  Saxon ' 
word  will  serve  his  purpose.  The  notion  was  first  carelessly  put 
forth  by  Sydney  Smith.  If  it  were  true,  Burke  would  often  be 
liable  to  severe  censure.  The  fact  is,  however,  that  the  practice 
of  almost  every  great  master  of  the  English  tongue,  from  Chaucer 
downwards,  makes  very  small  account  of  any  such  consideration. 
Swift  and  Defoe,  who  are  usually  cited  in  illustration  of  it,  count 
for  little,  and  their  authority  on  this  point  cannot  be  held  to  be 
exactly  commensurate  with  the  place  in  literature  which  their 
merits  have  earned  them.  Their  vernacular  cast  is  very  much 
due  to  the  fact  that  they  were  among  the  iirst  political  writers  who 
aspired  to  be  widely  read  among  the  common  people.  The  same 
circumstance  fostered  the  racy  native  English  style  of  Cobbett, 
and  had  its  effects  on  journalists  like  Mr.  Fonblanque,  and  orators 
like  Mr.  Bright.  But  most  of  our  great  writers,  unreservedly 
and  freely  as  they  use  the  Latin  element  in  the  language,  are 
also  thoroughly  at  home  in  the  exclusive  use  of  the  vernacular. 
Brougham  was  wrong  in  saying  that  Burke  excelled  in  every 
variety  of  style  except  the  plain  and  unadorned.  It  is  not  a 
question  of  principle,  but  of  art  and  of  propriety.  It  may  be 
worth  while  occasionally  to  study  the  art  of  writing  in  'pure 
Saxon,'  but  to  confine  ourselves  in  practice  to  this  interesting 
feat,  would  be  as  absurd  as  for  a  musician  to  employ  habitually 
and  on  principle  the  tour  de  force  of  playing  the  pianoforte  with 
one  hand.  We  should  lose  breadth,  power,  and  richness  of 
combination.  The  harmony  of  our  language,  as  we  find  it  in 
Hooker,  Shakespeare,  and  Milton,  is  fully  established.  We  must 
take  it  as  we  find  it.  At  any  rate  it  is  not  until  the  student 
is  a  considerable  master  in  the  full  compass  of  our  remarkable 
tongue,  that  he  can  venture  with  safety  on  the  experiment  of 


Ixiv  INTRODUCTION. 

restricting  himself  from  the  use  of  the  most  copious  and  effective 
of  its  elements.  The  inimitable  passage  from  Shakespeare  already 
quoted '  is  enough  to  prove  how  much  the  greatest  writers  of 
English  have  relied  on  Latinisms :  yet  Shakespeare  was  never  at 
a  loss  for  pure  Saxon  idioms.  Burke  generally  puts  the  strength  of 
his  Saxon  element  into  short,  energetic,  suggestive  sentences,  in 
the  body  of  the  paragraph,  and  concludes  it  with  a  few  sonorous 
Latinisms.  He  often  broke  out,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  into 
a  strain  of  farmer-like  bluntness.  In  one  of  his  great  Letters 
on  the  Peace,  in  the  midst  of  a  complaint  of  the  poverty  and 
insufficiency  of  the  political  notions  of  the  French,  which  he 
compares  to  their  meagre  diet,  he  suddenly  exclaims  that  English 
people  want  '  food  that  will  stick  to  the  ribs.'  So  in  this 
volume  (p.  241)  he  declares  that  a  machine  like  the  reformed 
French  monarchy  is  '  not  worth  the  grease  of  its  wheels.'  We 
need  not  multiply  examples.  The  so-called  Saxon  element  is  of 
immense  use  as  a  general  source  of  energy  ;  and  a  great  master 
may  employ  it  with  great  effect  in  the  pathetic  line.  Upon  its 
successful  manipulation  depends  very  much  of  the  effect  of  all 
that  is  written  in  our  tongue ;  but  we  act  unwisely  in  neglecting 
to  make  much,  if  not  the  most,  of  our  so-called  Latinism.  The 
extent  of  its  use  must  depend  mainly  upon  the  ear. 

Burke's  Tract,  as  it  stands,  exceeds  the  measure  of  what  he 
intended  when  it  was  commenced,  and  falls  short  of  the  great  idea 
which  grew  upon  him  as  he  proceeded  with  it — of  exhibiting  fully 
and  fairly  to  the  eye  of  the  world  the  grand  and  stable  majesty 
of  the  civil  and  social  system  of  England,  in  contrast  with  the 
hasty  and  incongruous  edifice  run  up  by  the  French  Reformers. 
The  analysis  which  precedes  the  text  in  the  present  edition  dis- 
tinguishes it  into  two  portions,  the  first  including  two  thirds,  the 
second,  one  third,  of  the  book.  ;  The  First  Part  is  occupied  with 
England,  It  is  to  this  First  Part  that  the  foregoing  observa- 
tions chiefly  apply.  It  differs  in  so  many  points  from  the 
Second  Part,  which  is  occupied  with  the  new  political  system 
of  France,  that  a  critic  of  the  omniscient  school  might  well 
be  excused  for  attributing  it  to  another  hand.  Half  of  the 
First  Part,  or  one  third  of  the  whole  work,  forms  what  may 
be  called  the  Introduction.     It  answers  strictly  to  the  original 

*  Page  xxix. 


INTRODUCTION.  Ixv 

title  'Reflections  on  Certain  Proceedings  of  the  Revolution 
Society  ^/  It  is  sufficiently  complete  and  coherent,  and  may  be 
advantageously  read  by  itself.  The  remainder  of  the  First  Part 
consists  of  several  dissertations  unequal  in  length  and  complete- 
ness. The  most  important  is  that  which  has  been  called  Section 
I  (the  Church  Establishment).  It  seems  to  be  interrupted  at 
page  145,  and  resumed  at  page  164,  the  intermediate  space  being 
occupied  with  a  fragmentary  vindication  of  the  French  monarchy 
and  nobility.  We  have  here  the  half-finished  components  of 
a  greater  work,  the  completion  of  which  was  prevented  by  the 
urgency  of  the  occasion.  The  vindication  of  the  English 
democracy,  for  Burke's  immediate  purpose  the  least  important 
part,  but  which  would  have  perhaps  possessed  the  highest  interest 
for  posterity,  is  omitted  altogether.  The  '  Appeal  from  the  New 
to  the  Old  Whigs '  to  some  extent  supplies  its  place.  But  the 
whole  of  the  middle  third  of  the  work  is  incomplete,  and  requires 
to  be  read  with  caution.  Burke  probably  wrote  the  pieces  which 
compose  it  at  different  times,  during  the  spring,  and  laid  the 
work  aside  altogether  during  the  summer,  of  1790. 
■r  The  Second  Part,  or  Critique  of  the  new  French  Constitution, 
was  composed,  according  to  appearances,  as  autumn  approached, 
and  the  necessity  for  producing  the  work  for  the  winter  season, 
then  the  chief  season  of  the  year,  whether  for  business  or  any 
other  purposes,  became  apparent.  This  portion  is  rather  a 
voucher  or  piece  justifcative  than  a  necessary  part  of  the  book. 
It  is  a  piece  of  vigorous  and  exhaustive,  though  rapid  and  one- 
sided, criticism.  It  is  a  direct  and  unsparing  diatribe  on  the  new 
French  statesmanship,  viewing  the  system  it  produced  wholly  by 
the  light  of  reason  and  common  sense,  and  leaving  out  of  account 
all  the  arguments  which  are  adduced  in  the  First  Part  of  the 
work.  It  is,  as  might  be  anticipated,  not  altogether  just.  We 
may  fairly  demur,  on  the  threshold,  to  the  general  spirit  of  Burke's 
criticism. 

'  Dart  thy  skill  at  me ; 

Bruise  me  with  scorn ;   confound  me  with  a  flout ; 

Thrust  thy  sharp  wit  quite  through  my  ignorance; 

Cut  me  to  pieces  with  thy  keen  conceit.' 

Posterity,  however,  in  the  words  of  Burke  himself,  written  thirty 

*  See  note,  p.  297. 
VOL.  n.  e 


Ixvl  INTR  OD  UCTION. 

years  before,  will  not  accept  satire  in  the  place  of  history. 
These  pages  contain  more  of  Burke's  personal  manner,  and  have 
a  character  less  declamatory,  more  minute,  and  more  to  the 
immediate  purpose,  than  what  precedes.  They  evidently  represent 
a  great  intellectual  effort,  and  contrast  strongly  with  the  previous 
almost  spontaneous  ebullition  of  sentiment  and  doctrine.  Yet 
they  are  marked,  and  by  no  means  sparingly,  with  striking  literary 
beauties,  which  the  student  will  do  well  to  search  out  for 
himself.  The  historical  value  of  this  part  of  the  work  is  still 
considerable,  though  its  interest  is  diminished  by  the  fact  that 
much  of  the  constitution  which  it  attacks  speedily  disappeared, 
and  that  Burke's  knowledge  of  it  was  not  altogether  correct  or 
complete.  As  an  instance  we  may  take  the  ludicrous  error  at 
pp.  204-5,  where  it  is  assumed  that  the  Departments  and 
Communes  were  to  be  portioned  out  by  straight  lines  with  the 
aid  of  the  theodolite.  Burke  was  fond  of  a  certain  ponderous 
style  of  repartee,  and  something  of  this  is  traceable  in  his  endea- 
vours to  show  that  the  Liberty  boasted  by  the  Assembly  was  a 
mere  semblance,  and  that  they  treated  France  'exactly  like  a 
conquered  country.'  Nothing  can  be  more  admirable  that  his 
applying  to  them  the  saying  attributed  to  Louis  XIV,  '  C'est  mon 
plaisir — c'est  pour  ma  gloire'  (p.  136).  Burke  always  had  two 
favourite  images,  derived  from  the  art  of  the  house-builder,  by 
which  to  illustrate  the  labours  of  the  politician.  One  of  these  is 
the  Buttress,  the  other  the  Cement,  or  Cementing  principled  Both 
of  these  he  applies  unsparingly  in  his  vigorous  condemnation  of  the 
details  of  the  novelties  of  French  polity.  The  buttresses  were 
shams,  and  the  cement  had  no  binding  in  it.  The  criticism  on  the 
reformed  Office  of  the  King,  and  on  the  new  Judicature,  is  brief, 
but  to  the  purpose ;  but  the  most  remarkable  is  that  which  relates 
to  the  army,  containing  as  it  does  a  forecast  of  the  condition  of 
a  military  democracy,  and  an  anticipation  of  the  future  despotism 
of  Napoleon  (p.  260).  Only  one  Frenchman,  Rivarol,  appears  to 
have  expressed  a  similar  foreboding.  The  value  of  the  remarks 
on  the  financial  system,  which  conclude  the  work,  is  clouded  by 
the  perturbation  of  the  question  which  came  with  the  lengthened 

^  The  substantive  '  cement,'  by  the  way,  unlike  the  verb  '  to  cement,* 
should  be  accented  on  the  first  syllable.  This  trifle  is  essential  to  the 
harmony  of  more  than  one  of  Burke's  sentences.     See  vol.  i.  p.  231. 


INTRODUCTION.  IxvII 

wars,  and  the    Republic   early  took   care   to   avoid  bankruptcy  / 
by  enormous   contributions  levied   on   the  countries  which  fell 
under  its  yoke.     The  main  predictions  of  Burke,  however,  were 
literally  fulfilled.     *  The  Assignats,  after  having  poured  millions  \ 
into  the  coffers  of  the  ruling  rebellion,  suddenly  sank  into  the  \ 
value  of  the  paper  of  which  they  were  made.    Thousands  and  tens    \ 
of  thousands  were  ruined.     The  nation  was  bankrupt,  but  the 
Jacobin  Government  was  rich ;  and  the  operation  had  thus  all     ; 
the   results    It  was   ever   made   for^.'     On   the    appearance   of     I 
M.  Calonne's  work,  *De  I'Etat  de  France,'  Burke  considerably     j 
altered  this  Second  Part  of  the  work,  and  the  text  of  the  first 
edition  differs,  therefore,  in  many  places,  from  the  subsequent 
ones. 

Burke's  Tract  provoked,  in  reply,  as  is  well  known,  a  whole 
literature  of  its  own,  no  single  representative  of  which  is  now 
held  in  any  account,  if  we  except  the  '  Vindiciae  Gallicae,'  the  / 
early  work  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh.  It  had,  of  course,  its  replies  / 
in  French  literature ;  but  its  general  influence  on  France  is  best  I 
traced  in  De  Bonald'^,  De  Maistre,  Chateaubriand,  and  other 
litterateurs  of  the  reaction.  The  same  kind  of  influence  is  trace- 
able in  German  thought  in  the  works  of  Goerres,  Stolberg, 
Frederick  Schlegel,  and  others.  Burke's  true  value  was  early 
appreciated  in  Germany,  and  A.  M.  von  Miiller,  lecturing  at 
Dresden  in  1806,  even  remarked  on  the  circumstance  that  Burke 
only  met  with  his  due  honours  from  strangers.  '  His  country 
but  half  understands  him,  and  feels  only  half  his  glory,  considering 
him  chiefly  as  a  brilliant  orator,  as  a  partisan,  and  a  patriot.  He 
is  acknowledged  in  Germany  as  the  real  and  successful  mediator 
between  liberty  and  law,  between  union  and  division  of  power, 
and  between  the  republican  and  aristocratic' principles.'  Burke 
certainly  has  not  been  without  his  effect  on  the  political  notions  of 
the  non-theological  philosophers,  as  Schelling,  Steffens,  Reinhold, 
&c. ;  and  if  the  student  should  wish  to  set  by  the  side  of  Burke 
for  purposes  of  contrast  the  views  of  a  competent  professor  of 
scientific  theory,  he  should  turn  to  the  pages  of  Ancillon  ^    He 

^  Croly,  Memoir  of  Burke,  vol.  ii.  p.  134. 

"  The  connexion,  however,  is  rather  conventional.  There  was  little  in 
common  between  Burke  and  De  Bonald,  who  recommended  despotism  as  the 
primitive  and  normal  form  of  legislation,  and  objected  to  toleration. 

*  'Ueber  die  Staats-wissenschaft,  von  Friedrich  Ancillon.     Berlin,  1820.' 


Ixviii  INTRODUCTION. 

must,  however,  be  prepared  to  encounter  a  vast  army  of  desperate 
commonplaces.  Gentz,  the  translator  of  Burke,  himself  a  con- 
siderable politician,  is  well  imbued  with  his  model ;  and  at  home 
the  school  of  Burke  is  represented  by  the  names  of  Coleridge, 
Wordsworth,  Southey,  Macaulay,  Arnold,  and  Whately^.  These 
few  names  will  suffice  to  indicate  approximately  Burke's  peculiar 
place  in  general  literature  ;  but  his  influence  in  every  way  extends 
far  more  widely  than  any  line  which  could  be  usefully  drawn. 

Considering  that  Burke  stands  unapproachably  the  first  of  our 
political  orators,  and  indeed  in  the  very  first  rank  as  a  writer  and 
;  a  thinker,  it  seems  strange  that  so  few  express  and  formal  tributes 
have  been  paid  to  his  memory.  Had  Burke  been  a  Frenchman, 
nearly  every  French  critic,  great  or  small,  would  have  tried  his 
hand  on  such  a  subject,  not  in  parenthetical  allusion,  or  in  a  few 
brief  words  of  ardent  praise,  but  in  regular  essays  and  notices 
without  number.  Where  we  have  placed  a  stone,  they  would 
have  piled  a  cairn.  Thus  have  the  Cousins,  Saint-Beuves,  Guizots, 
and  Pontmartins  taken  every  opportunity  for  long  disquisition 
upon  their  Montaigne,  Pascal,  Bossuet,  Moliere,  La  Fontaine, 
and  the  other  great  authors  of  France.  With  us,  moreover,  the 
editions  of  Burke  have  been  few,  considering  his  fame ;  and  his 
direct  praises  have  been  for  the  most  part  confined,  here  to  a  page, 
there  to  a  paragraph.  It  is  necessary  for  an  Englishman  to  know 
Burke's  writings  well  if  he  would  be  enabled  to  judge  of  the  extent 
of  his  influence  on  the  leading  minds  of  this  country.   Only  know 

Political  theory,  like  everything  else,  has  its  uses  as  well  as  its  abuses.  '  The 
successful  progress  of  reforms  depends  in  a  great  measure  on  the  political 
maxims  which  prevail  among  governors  and  governed,  and  on  the  advances 
of  political  science.  False  doctrines  lead  to  erratic  wishes,  destructive  mis- 
conceptions, and  dangerous  misinterpretations.  Theory  must  combat  and 
clear  away  the  errors  of  theories,  indicate  the  general  direction  of  the  right 
way,  and  establish  the  true  goal ;  it  will  thus  be  easier  for  practical  politics, 
conducted  by  experience,  to  construct  every  portion  of  the  road  with  a  sure 
hand  and  firm  footsteps.*     Ancillon,  Preface,  p.  xxxi. 

*  It  would  be  unjust  to  pass  over  the  name  of  Mathias,  the  author  of  the 
'Pursuits  of  Literature,'  a  clever  satire,  illustrated  with  instructive  and 
amusing  original  notes.  No  one  should  omit  to  read  it  who  would  compre- 
hend the  direct  effect  of  Burke  on  his  own  generation.  At  this  distance 
of  time,  however,  we  do  not  tolerate  idle  panegyrics.  Johnson  once  said, 
somewhat  pettishly,  *  Where  is  all  the  wonder  ?  Burke  is,  to  be  sure,  a  man 
of  uncommon  abilities  ;  with  a  great  quantity  of  matter  in  his  mind,  and  a 
great  fluency  of  language  in  his  mouth ;  but  we  are  not  to  be  stunned  and 
astonished  by  him  V     Boswell,  ed.  Croker,  p.  68l. 


INTR  OD  UCTION.  Ixix 

Burke,  and  you  will  find  his  thoughts  and  expressions  gleaming 
like  golden  threads  in  the  pages  of  distinguished  men  of  the 
generations  which  have  succeeded  his  own.  This  is  the  form 
in  which  Burke  has  chiefly  received  his  honours,  and  exercised 
his  authority  ^. 

The  art  of  speaking  and  of  writing  in  that  grand  old  style, 
of  which  Burke  was  so  great  a  master,  is  now  wellnigh  unknown. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  English  dramatists,  and  of  the  Italian,! 
painters,  it  is  the  fault  of  a  broken  tradition,  of  a  forgotten 
training,  and  of  changed  habits  of  life.  That  which  was  once 
the  treasure  of  the  few  has  somewhat  suffered  in  the  general 
diffusion.  Arts  appear  to  languish  in  an  atmosphere  of  con- 
tagious mediocrity.  There  is  no  one  to  teach,  either  by  word  or 
by  example,  the  perfect  design  of  Correggio,  or  the  powerful 
brush-play  of  Tintoret.  When  we  glance  over  the  treasures  of 
those  great  English  masters  of  prose,  among  whom  Burke  stands 
almost  last,  our  hearts  may  well  sink  within  us.  We  have  to  study 
as  well  as  we  can,  and  strive  to  pick  up  piece  by  piece  the  frag- 
ments of  a  lost  mystery.  It  may  be  said  that  we  have  developed 
qualities  which  are  more  real,  more  enduring,  and  more  valuable. 
Cuyp  and  Hals  were  doubtless  greater  masters  in  certain  depart- 
ments of  their  art  than  Rubens ;  and  Hallam  presents  us  with  a 
variety  of  political  method  which  contrasts  in  many  respects 
advantageously  with  that  of  Burke.  It  is  an  interesting  task  to 
represent  faithfully  and  minutely  the  features  of  a  distant  scene, 
to  magnify  it  and  artificially  to  approximate  it  to  the  eye  of  the 
observer,  to  blend  its  shadows  carefully  and  easily  with  a  mild 
and  uniform  light,  to  balance  the  composition  without  the  ap- 
pearance of  artifice,  and  so  nearly  to  lose  and  discard  the  effects 
of  perspective  that  the  picture  shall  almost  assume  the  pro- 
portions of  a  geometrical  elevation.  A  sense  of  repose  and  of 
completeness  mingles  perceptibly  with  our  satisfaction  at  these 
works  half  of  art,  half  of  antiquarianism.  Burke  is  a  Rubens 
rather  than  a  Cuyp.  The  objects  are  distinct  and  near  at  hand: 
the  canvas  is  large,  the  composition  almost  coarse  in  its  boldness 
and  strength,  and  the  colours  are  audaciously  contrasted  and 
dashed  in  with  a  sort  of  gallant  carelessness.  The  human  face 
is  exaggerated  in  its  proportions,  and  we  attribute  more  to  the 

*  See  footnote,  p.  Ix,  ante. 


IxX  INTR  OD  UC  TION. 

quick  imagination  of  the  artist  than  to  the  mere  influence  of 
the  objects  which  he  proposes  to  himself  to  dehneate.  More 
than  all,  however,  in  the  writing  of  Burke,  is  the  effect  due  to 
a  certain  firm  and  uniformly  large  method  of  manipulation.  His 
thoughts  run  naturally,  as  it  were,  into  large  type  out  of  the 
'  quick  forge  and  working-house '  of  his  thought.  Profound  as 
they  are,  they  never  appear  as  the  forced  and  unmellowed  fruit 
of  study.  Objective  as  they  are,  they  come  nearer  to  the  lively 
impress  of  the  man  who  thinks,  than  to  the  mere  portraiture 
of  the  thing  he  is  contemplating.  We  feel  that  we  are  in  the 
presence  of  una  dme  a  double  et  triple  etage.  Such  is,  in  great 
measure,  the  general  characteristic  of  what  De  Quincey  has 
denominated  the  Literature  of  Poiver,  the  stimulating,  fructify- 
ing, and  if  its  seed  should  fall  on  a  fit  soil,  the  self-reproducing. 
On  looking  at  a  picture  of  Velasquez,  said  Northcote,  you  almost 
lose  the  powerlessness  of  the  undisciplined  and  unassisted  hand. 
*  You  feel  as  if  you  could  take  up  the  brush  and  do  anything.' 
It  is  in  like  wise  with  the  fine  living  and  speaking  performances 
of  Cicero  and  Burke,  of  Virgil  and  Dryden.  It  is  in  writers  such 
as  these  that  we  find  the  self-continuing  impulse,  the  lost  power 
of  school  and  tradition,  the  communication  of  a  precious  secret, 
the  touch  of  the  coal  from  off  the  altar.  But  as  in  the  case  of 
a  rapidly-touched  work  of  a  great  painter,  we  see  the  genius, 
though  we  trace  little  or  nothing  of  the  intellectual  and  manual 
toil  which  has  developed  it.  Let  it  never  be  forgotten  that  the 
greatest  masters  have  been  the  most  patient,  anxious,  and  as- 
siduous students,  and  he  who  aspires  to  be  of  their  number  must 
be  prepared  to  accept  the  conditions.  The  nature  and  extent  of 
the  studies  of  Cicero  and  Burke  can  only  be  adequately  estimated 
from  their  writings.  They  aimed  at  a  close  contact  with  realities, 
at  uniting  in  themselves  literature,  philosophy,  and  a  high  standard 
of  practical  life,  at  facilitating  this  happy  combination  in  others, 
and  at  justifying  their  position  as  statesmen  by  being  the  wisest 
as  well  as  the  cleverest  men  of  their  day.  The  conception  of 
such  aims  is  rarely  found  with  power  of  mind  and  body  to 
accomplish  them,  nevertheless  *  So  toil  the  workmen  that  repair 
a  world.' 

London,  March  ii,  1875. 


In  the  Introduction  to  the  previous  volume  was  inserted  an  inscription, 
written  by  Dr.  Parr,  intended  for  a  national  monument  to  Burke.  It  may 
be  interesting  to  add  here  the  equally  masterly  one  inserted  by  Parr  in  the 
Dedication  to  his  edition  of  Bellendenus. 

EDMUNDO  .  BUIUCE 
VIRO  .  TUM  .  OB  .  DOCTRINAM  .  MULTIPLICEM  .  ET  .  EXQUISITAM 

TUM  .  OB  .  CELERES  .  ILLOS  .  INGENII  .  MOTUS 

QUI  ,  ET  .  AD  .  EXCOGITANDUM  .  ACUTI  .  ET  .  AD  .  EXPLICANDUM 

ORNANDUMQUE  ,  UBERES  .  SUNT 

EXIMTO  ,  AC  .  PRAECLARO 

OPTIME  .  DE  .  LITTERIS  .  QUAS  .  SOLAS  .  ESSE  .  OMNIUM  .  TEMPORUM 

OMNIUMQUE  .  LOCORUM  .  EXPERTUS  .  VIDIT 

OPTIME  .  DE  .  SENATU  .  CUJUS  .  PERICLITANTIS 

IPSE  .  DECUS  .  ET  .  COLUMEN  .  FUIT 

OPTIME  .  DE  .  PATRIA  .  IN  .  GIVES 

SUI  .  AMANTISSIMOS  ,  EHEU  .  INGRATA 

NUNQUAM  .  NON  .  PROMERITO 

LIBRUM  .  HUNCCE  .  EA  .  QUA  .  PAR  .  EST  .  OBSERVANTIA 

D.  D.  D. 
A.  E.  A.  O. 


REFLECTIONS 

ON    THE 

REVOLUTION    IN    FRANCE, 

AND   ON   THE   PROCEEDINGS   IN   CERTAIN  SOCIETIES 
IN   LONDON   RELATIVE   TO   THAT   EVENT. 

IN  A  LETTER  INTENDED  TO  HAVE  BEEN  SENT  TO  A  GENTLEMAN 

IN  PARIS. 

BY   THE   RIGHT    HONOURABLE 

EDMUND     BURKE. 

[Published  in  October,  1790.    Eleventh  Edition,  Dodsley,  1791.] 

[ARGUMENT.] 

Part  I,  pp.  4 — 193. 

The  Sentiments  and  Political  Doctrines   of   Englishmen  compared 

WITH    THOSE    OF  THE    FrENCH    REVOLUTIONISTS. 

Introduction.  The  Constitutional  Society  and  the  Revolution  Society,  p.  4. 
The  Sermon  of  Dr.  Price,  p.  12.  It  misrepresents  the  English 
Constitution,  p.  15.  The  Right  'to  choose  our  own  governors' 
disclaimed  and  refuted  as  a  practical  doctrine, p.  18.  The  Right  'to 
cashier  them  for  misconduct'  disclaimed,  &c.,  p.  31.  The  Right  'to 
form  a  government  for  ourselves'  disclaimed,  &c.,  and  English 
liberties  shown  to  be  essentially  an  inheritance,  p.  36.  Comparison  *^ 
of  the  proceedings  of  the  English  Revolutionists  in  1688  with  those 
of  the  French  Revolutionists  in  1789  p.  41.  The  latter  accounted 
for  by  the  composition  of  the  National  Assembly,  p.  46.  Character 
of  the  representatives  of  the  Tiers  Etat,  p.  47  ;  of  the  Clergy,  p.  53. 
Influence  of  turbulent  nobles,  p.  54.  Jacobinical  fallacies  on  the  £ 
qualifications  for  political  power,  the  nature  of  property,  &c.,p.  57,  & 
cannot  result  in  the  true  liberty,  p.  62,  nor  in  the  true  representa- 
tion of  a  people,  p.  66.  The  true  Rights  of  Man,  p.  68,  and  their 
VOL.    II.  B 


a  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

connexion  with  the  principle  of  government,  p.  70.  The  distemper 
of  remedy,  p.  74.  Illiberality  and  inhumanity  of  the  Sermon  of 
Dr.  Price,  p.  75.  Price  compared  with  Peters,  p.  77.  The  treat- 
ment of  the  King  and  Royal  Family  of  France,  p.  79,  contrasted 
with  the  spirit  of  old  European  manners  and  opinions,  which  being 
natural  and  politic,  still  influences  Englishmen,  p.  89.  Louis  XVI. 
no  tyrant,  p.  96.  The  author  thinks  the  honour  of  England  con- 
cerned for  the  repudiation  of  Dr.  Price's  doctrines  and  sentiments, 
p.  99,  and  proceeds  to  exhibit  the  true  picture  of  the  English 
political  system,  p.  104,  which  is  based  on  i.  the  Church,  2.  the 
Crown,  3.  the  NobiHty,  4.  the  People,  p.  105, 
Sect.  I.  The  Church  Establishment  in  England.  Religion  grounded  in 
nature,  and  most  necessary  where  there  is  most  liberty,  p.  108, 
aiding  to  enforce  the  obligation  that  ought  to  subsist  between  one 
generation  and  another,  p.  iii,  which  is  the  true  Social  Contract, 
p.  1 13.  Use  of  the  Church,  as  a  cementing  and  pervading  principle, 
to  the  State,  p.  115.  The  end  attained  by  its  control  over  Educa- 
tion, p.  117.  Influence  of  Religion  equally  necessary  to  rich 
and  to  poor,  p.  119.  The  rights  of  property  apply  to  the  Estates  of 
the  Church,  and  are  grossly  outraged  by  the  confiscation  of  Church 
property  in  France,  p.  i2  2.-4-National  Credit  of  France,  a  hollow 
pretext,  p.  126.  Monied  interest  hostile  to  the  Church,  p.  128. 
Men  of  Letters  hostile,  p.  130.  Their  Coalition  to  destroy  it,  p.  133. 
This  Confiscation  compared  with  others,  p.  135.  Unnecessary,  p. 
138.     Badly  or  fraudulently  carried  out,  p.  142. 

/  Sect.  II.  (Fragment  only.)    The  monarchical  government  of  France ; 

Its    abuses   not   incurable,   p.  145.      Standards    to   judge    of  its 

effects;    Population,  p.  150.     National  Wealth,  p.  152.      Patriotic 

spirit  of  late  Government,  p.  155. 

Sect.  III.  (Fragment  only.)     The  French  Nobility,  p.  158.  . 

.Sect.  IV.   (No  remains.) 

J  Sect.  I,  continued.  The  French  Clergy :  their  vices  not  the  cause  of  the 
confiscation,  p.  164.  Vices  of  the  ancient  Clergy  no  pretext  for 
confiscation,  p.  167.  Character  of  modem  French  Clergy,  p.  171. 
Anarchy  of  the  new  Church  System,  p.  173,  contrasted  with  the 
Protestant  Church  Policy  of  England,  p.  1 76.  Atheistical  fanaticism, 
p.  180.  The  policy  of  confiscation  contrasted  with  that  of  con- 
servation, p.  182. 

Part  II,  pp.  193—294. 

The  PoLicT  of  the  National  Assembly  criticised. 

Introduction.    Their  right  to  act  denied,  p.  193.     Their  spirit,  p.  195. 


PREFACE.  3 

Their  ignorance  of  Statesmanship,  p.  196.     The  result  of  their 

labours  criticised,  p.  202. 
Sect.  I.      The  Legislature,  p.  203. 
Sect.  II.    The  Executive  Power,  p.  235. 
Sect.  Ill,  The  Judicature,  p.  243. 
Sect.  IV.    The  Army,  p.  249. 
Sect.  V.     The  Financial  System,  p.  268. 
Conclusion,  p.  J^c] 


It  may  not  be  unnecessary  to  inform  the  Reader,  that  the 
following  Reflections  had  their  origin  in  a  correspon- 
dence between  the  Author  and  a  very  young  gentleman 
at  Paris,  who  did  him  the  honour  of  desiring  his  opinion 
upon  the  important  transactions,  which  then,  and  ever 
since,  have  so  much  occupied  the  attention  of  all  men. 
An  answer  was  written  some  time  in  the  month  of 
October,  1789;  but  it  was  kept  back  upon  prudential 
considerations.  That  letter  is  alluded  to  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  following  sheets.  It  has  been  since  for- 
warded to  the  person  to  whom  it  was  addressed.  The 
reasons  for  the  delay  in  sending  it  were  assigned  in  a 
short  letter  to  the  same  gentleman.  This  produced 
on  his  part  a  new  and  pressing  application  for  the 
Author's  sentiments. 

The  Author  began  a  second  and  more  full  discussion 
on  the  subject.  This  he  had  some  thoughts  of  publish- 
ing early  in  the  last  spring ;  but  the  matter  gaining  upon 
him,  he  found  that  what  he  had  undertaken  not  only  far 
exceeded  the  measure  of  a  letter,  but  that  its  impor- 
tance required  rather  a  more  detailed  consideration  than 
at  that  time  he  had  any  leisure  to  bestow  upon  it. 
However,  having  thrown  down  his  first  thoughts  in  the 
form  of  a  letter,  and  indeed  when  he  sat  down  to  write, 
having  intended  it  for  a  private  letter,  he  found  it 
difficult  to  change  the  form  of  address,  when  his  senti- 
ments had  grown  into  a  greater  extent,  and  had  re- 
ceived another  direction.  A  different  plan,  he  is  sensible, 
might  be  more  favourable  to  a  commodious  division 
and  distribution  of  his  matter. 


B  2 


4  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

Dear  Sir, 

You  are  pleased  to  call  again,  and  with  some  earnestness, 
for  my  thoughts  on  the  late  proceedings  in  France.  I  will 
not  give  you  reason  to  imagine  that  I  think  my  sentiments 
of  such  value  as  to  wish  myself  to  be  solicited  about  them. 
They  are  of  too  little  consequence  to  be  very  anxiously 
either  communicated  or  withheld.  It  was  from  attention  to 
you,  and  to  you  only,  that  I  hesitated  at  the  time,  when  you 
first  desired  to  receive  them.  In  the  first  letter  I  had  the 
honour  to  write  to  you,  and  which  at  length  I  send,  I  wrote 
neither  for  nor  from  any  description  of  men ;  nor  shall  I  in 
this.  My  errors,  if  any,  are  my  own.  My  reputation  alone 
is  to  answer  for  them. 

You  see,  Sir,  by  the  long  letter  I  have  transmitted  to  you, 
that,  though  I  do  most  heartily  wish  that  France  may  be 
animated  by  a  spirit  of  rational  liberty,  and  that  I  think  you 
bound,  in  all  honest  policy,  to  provide  a  permanent  body,  in 
which  that  spirit  may  reside,  and  an  effectual  organ,  by  which 
it  may  act,  it  is  my  misfortune  to  entertain  great  doubts 
concerning  several  material  points  in  your  late  ti-ansactions. 

You  imagined,  when  you  wrote  last,  that  I  might  possibly 
be  reckoned  among  the  approvers  of  certain  proceedings  in 
France,  from  the  solemn  public  seal  of  sanction  they  have 
received  from  two  clubs  of  gentlemen  in  London,  called  the 
Constitutional  Society,  and  the  Revolution  Society. 

I  certainly  have  the  honour  to  belong  to  more  clubs  than 
one,  in  which  the  constitution  of  this  kingdom  and  the 
principles  of  the  glorious  Revolution,  are  held  in  high 
reverence  :  and  I  reckon  myself  among  the  most  forward  in 
my  zeal  for  maintaining  that  constitution  and  those  principles 
in  their  utmost  purity  and  vigour.  It  is  because  I  do  so,  that 
I  think  it  necessary  for  me,  that  there  should  be  no  mistake. 
Those  who  cultivate  the  memory  of  our  revolution,  and  those 
;who  are  attached  to  the  constitution  of  this  kingdom,  will 


THE   CONSTITUTIONAL  SOCIETY.  5 

take  good  care  how  they  are  involved  with  persons  who, 
under  the  pretext  of  zeal  towards  the  Revolution  and  Consti- 
tution, too  frequently  wander  from  their  true  principles ;  and 
are  ready  on  every  occasion  to  depart  from  the  firm  but 
cautious  and  deliberate  spirit  which  produced  the  one,  and 
which  presides  in  the  other.  Before  I  proceed  to  answer  the 
more  material  particulars  in  your  letter,  I  shall  beg  leave  to 
give  you  such  information  as  I  have  been  able  to  obtain  of 
the  two  clubs  which  have  thought  proper,  as  bodies,  to 
interfere  in  the  concerns  of  France ;  first  assuring  you,  that  I 
am  not,  and  that  I  have  never  been,  a  member  of  either  of 
those  societies. 

The  first,  calling  itself  the  Constitutional  Society,  or  So- 
ciety for  Constitutional  Information,  or  by  some  such  title,  is,  I 
believe,  of  seven  or  eight  years  standing.  The  institution  of 
this  society  appears  to  be  of  a  charitable,  and  so  far  of  a 
laudable,  nature:  it  was  intended  for  the  circulation,  at  the 
expence  of  the  members,  of  many  books,  which  few  others 
would  be  at  the  expence  of  buying ;  and  which  might  lie  on 
the  hands  of  the  booksellers,  to  the  great  loss  of  an  useful 
body  of  men.  Whether  the  books  so  charitably  ctrculated, 
were  ever  as  charitably  read,  is  more  than  I  know.  Possibly 
several  of  them  have  been  exported  to  France;  and,  like 
goods  not  in  request  here,  may  with  you  have  found  a 
market,  I  have  heard  much  talk  of  the  lights  to  be  drawn 
from  books  that  are  sent  from  hence.  What  improvements 
they  have  had  in  their  passage  (as  it  is  said  some  liquors  are 
meliorated  by  crossing  the  sea)  I  cannot  tell:  But  1  never 
heard  a  man  of  common  judgment,  or  the  least  degree  of 
information,  speak  a  word  in  praise  of  the  greater  part  of  the 
publications  circulated  by  that  society;  nor  have  their  pro- 
ceedings been  accounted,  except  by  some  of  themselves,  as 
of  any  serious  consequence. 

Your   National  Assembly  seems  to  entertain  much  the 


6  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

same  opinion  that  I  do  of  this  poor  charitable  club.  As  a 
nation,  you  reserved  the  whole  stock  of  your  eloquent 
acknowledgments  for  the  Revolution  Society;  when  their 
fellows  in  the  Constitutional  were,  in  equity,  entitled  to  some 
share.  Since  you  have  selected  the  Revolution  Society  as 
the  great  object  of  your  national  thanks  and  praises,  you  will 
think  me  excuseable  in  making  its  late  conduct  the  subject 
of  my  observations.  The  National  Assembly  of  France  has 
given  importance  to  these  gentlemen  by  adopting  them ;  and 
they  return  the  favour,  by  acting  as  a  committee  in  England 
for  extending  the  principles  of  the  National  Assembly. 
Henceforward  we  must  consider  them  as  a  kind  of  privileged 
persons;  as  no  inconsiderable  members  in  the  diplomatic 
body.  This  is  one  among  the  revolutions  which  have  given 
splendour  to  obscurity,  and  distinction  to  undiscerned  merit. 
Until  very  lately  I  do  not  recollect  to  have  heard  of  this  club. 
I  am  quite  sure  that  it  never  occupied  a  moment  of  my 
thoughts;  nor,  I  believe,  those  of  any  person  out  of  their 
own  set. .  1  find,  upon  enquiry,  that  on  the  anniversary  of 
the  Revolution  in  1688,  a  club  of  dissenters,  but  of  what 
denomination  I  know  not,  have  long  had  the  custom  of 
hearing  a  sermon  in  one  of  their  churches ;  and  that  after- 
wards they  spent  the  day  cheerfully,  as  other  clubs  do,  at  the 
tavern.  But  I  never  heard  that  any  public  measure,  or 
political  system,  much  less  that  the  merits  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  any  foreign  nation,  had  been  the  subject  of  a  formal 
proceeding  at  their  festivals ;  until,  to  my  inexpressible  sur- 
prise, I  found  them  in  a  sort  of  public  capacity,  by  a  con- 
gratulatory address,  giving  an  authoritative  sanction  to  the 
proceedings  of  the  National  Assembly  in  France. 

In  the  anlient  principles  and  conduct  of  the  club,  so 
far  at  least  as  they  were  declared,  I  see  nothing  to 
which  I  could  take  exception.  I  think  it  very  prob- 
able,  that   for    some    purpose,    new   members    may    have 


THE  REVOLUTION  SOCIETY.  7 

entered  among  them ;  and  that  some  truly  christian  poli- 
ticians, who  love  to  dispense  benefits,  but  are  careful  to 
conceal  the  hand  which  distributes  the  dole,  may  have  made 
them  the  instruments  of  their  pious  designs.  Whatever  I 
may  have  reason  to  suspect  concerning  private  manage- 
ment, I  shall  speak  of  nothing  as  of  a  certainty,  but  what  is 
public. 

For  one,  I  should  be  sorry  to  be  thought,  directly  or 
indirectly,  concerned  in  their  proceedings.  I  certainly  take 
my  full  share,  along  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  in  my  indi- 
vidual and  private  capacity,  in  speculating  on  what  has  been 
done,  or  is  doing,  on  the  public  stage ;  in  any  place  antient 
or  modern ;  in  the  republic  of  Rome,  or  the  republic  of 
Paris:  but  having  no  general  apostolical  mission,  being  a 
citizen  of  a  particular  state,  and  being  bound  up  in  a  con- 
siderable degree,  by  its  public  will,  I  should  think  it,  at  least 
improper  and  irregular,  for  me  to  open  a  formal  public  cor- 
respondence with  the  actual  government  of  a  foreign  nation, 
without  the  express  authority  of  the  government  under  which 
I  live. 

I  should  be  still  more  unwilling  to  enter  into  that  corre- 
spondence, under  anything  hke  an  equivocal  description, 
which  to  many,  unacquainted  with  our  usages,  might  make 
the  address,  in  which  I  joined,  appear  as  the  act  of  persons 
in  some  sort  of  corporate  capacity,  acknowledged  by  the 
laws  of  this  kingdom,  and  authorized  to  speak  the  sense  of 
some  part  of  it.  On  account  of  the  ambiguity  and  uncer- 
tainty of  unauthorized  general  descriptions,  and  of  the  deceit 
which  may  be  practised  under  them,  and  not  from  mere 
formality,  the  house  of  Commons  would  reject  the  most 
sneaking  petition  for  the  most  trifling  object,  under  that 
mode  of  signature  to  which  you  have  thrown  open  the 
folding-doors  of  your  presence  chamber,  and  have  ushered 
into  your  National  Assembly,  with  as  much  ceremony  and 


8  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

parade,  and  with  as  great  a  bustle  of  applause,  as  if  you  had 
been  visited  by  the  whole  representative  majesty  of  the  whole 
English  nation.  If  what  this  society  has  thought  proper  to 
send  forth  had  been  a  piece  of  argument,  it  would  have 
signified  little  whose  argument  it  was.  It  would  be  neither 
the  more  nor  the  less  convincing  on  account  of  the  party  it 
came  from.  But  this  is  only  a  vote  and  resolution.  It 
stands  solely  on  authority ;  and  in  this  case  it  is  the  mere 
authority  of  individuals,  few  of  whom  appear.  Their  sig- 
natures ought,  in  my  opinion,  to  have  been  annexed  to  their 
instrument.  The  world  would  then  have  the  means  of 
knowing  how  many  they  are ;  who  they  are ;  and  of  what 
value  their  opinions  may  be,  from  their  personal  abilities, 
from  their  knowledge,  their  experience,  or  their  lead  and 
authority  in  this  state.  To  me,  who  am  but  a  plain  man,  the 
proceeding  looks  a  little  too  refined,  and  too  ingenious  ;  it 
has  too  much  the  air  of  a  political  stratagem,  adopted  for  the 
sake  of  giving,  under  an  high-sounding  name,  an  importance 
to  the  public  declarations  of  this  club,  which,  when  the  ■ 
matter  came  to  be  closely  inspected,  they  did  not  altogether 
so  well  deserve.  It  is  a  policy  that  has  very  much  the  com- 
plexion of  a  fraud. 

I  flatter  myself  that  I  love  a  manly,  moral,  regulated  liberty 
as  well  as  any  gentleman  of  that  society,  be  he  who  he  will ; 
and  perhaps  I  have  given  as  good  proofs  of  my  attachment 
to  that  cause,  in  the  whole  course  of  my  public  conduct.  I 
think  I  envy  liberty  as  little  as  they  do,  to  any  other  nation. 
But  I  cannot  stand  forward,  and  give  praise  or  blame  to  any 
thing  which  relates  to  human  actions,  and  human  concerns,- 
on  a  simple  view  of  the  object  as  it  stands  stripped  of  every 
relation,  in  all  the  nakedness  and  solitude  of  metaphysical 
abstraction.  Circumstances  (which  with  some  gentlemen 
pass  for  nothing)  give  in  reality  to  every  political  principle- 
its   distinguishing  colovu:,  and   discriniinating_£ffect;_^  The 


REASONS   FOR   HESITATION.  9 

circumstances,  are  what  render  every  civil  and  political 
scheme  beneficial  or  noxious  to  mankind.  Abstractedly 
"^eakilig^  government,  as  well  as  liberty,  is  good ;  yet  could  I, 
in  common  sense,  ten  years  ago,  have  felicitated  France  on 
her  enjoyment  of  a  government  (for  she  then  had  a  govern- 
ment) without  enquiry  what  the  nature  of  that  government 
was,  or  how  it  was  administered  ?  Can  I  now  congratulate 
the  same  nation  upon  its  freedom  ?  Is  it  because  liberty  in 
the  abstract  may  be  classed  amongst  the  blessings  of  man- 
kind, that  I  am  seriously  to  felicitate  a  madman,  who  has 
escaped  from  the  protecting  restraint  and  wholesome  dark- 
ness of  his  cell,  on  his  restoration  to  the  enjoyment  of  light 
and  liberty?  Am  I  to  congratulate  an  highwayman  and 
murderer,  who  has  broke  prison,  upon  the  recovery  of  his 
natural  rights  ?  This  would  be  to  act  over  again  the  scene 
of  the  criminals  condemned  to  the  gallies,  and  their  heroic 
deliverer,  the  metaphysic  Knight  of  the  Sorrowful  Coun- 
tenance. 

When  I  see  the  spirit  of  liberty  in  action,  I  see  a  strong 
principle  at  work ;  and  this,  for  a  while,  is  all  I  can  possibly 
know  of  it.  The  wild  gas,  the  fixed  air,  is  plainly  broke 
loose :  but  we  ought  to  suspend  our  judgment  until  the  first 
effervescence  is  a  little  subsided,  till  the  liquor  is  cleared,  and 
until  we  see  something  deeper  than  the  agitation  of  a 
troubled  and  frothy  surface.  I  must  be  tolerably  sure,  before 
I  venture  publicly  to  congratulate  men  upon  a  blessing,  that 
they  have  really  received  one.  Flattery  corrupts  both  the 
receiver  and  the  giver ;  and  adulation  is  not  of  more  service 
to  the  people  than  to  kings.__I  should  therefore  suspend  my  L- 
congratulations  on  the  new  liberty  of  France,  until  I  was/ 
jnformed  how  it  had  been  combined  with  government;  withi 
public  force ;  with  the  discipline  and  obedience  of  armies ; 
with  the  collection  of  an  effective  and  well-distributed  re- 
venue;   with   morality   and   religion;    with   the    solidity   of 


lO  REVOLUTION  JN  FRANCE. 

property ;  with  peace  and  order ;  with  civil  and  social  man- 
ners. All  these  (in  their  way)  are  good  things  too ;  and, 
without  them,  Hberty  is  not  a  benefit  whilst  it  lasts,  and  is  not 
likely  to  continue  long.  The  effect  of  liberty  to  individuals 
is,  that  they  may  do  what  they  please :  we  ought  to  see  what 
it  will  please  them  to  do,  before  we  risque  congratulations, 
which  may  be  soon  turned  into  complaints.  Prudence  would 
dictate  this  in  the  case  of  separate  insulated  private  men; 
but  liberty,  when  men  act  in  bodies,  is  power.  Considerate 
people,  before  they  declare  themselves,  will  observe  the  use 
which  is  made  of  power;  and  particularly  of  so  trying  a  thing 
as  new  power  in  new  persons,  of  whose  principles,  tempers, 
and  dispositions,  they  have  little  or  no  experience,  and  in 
situations  where  those  who  appear  the  most  stirring  in  the 
scene  may  possibly  not  be  the  real  movers. 

All  these  considerations  however  were  below  the  transcen- 
dental dignity  of  the  Revolution  Society.  Whilst  I  continued 
in  the  country,  from  whence  I  had  the  honour  of  writing  to 
you,  I  had  but  an  imperfect  idea  of  their  transactions.  On 
my  coming  to  town,  I  sent  for  an  account  of  their  proceed- 
ings, which  had  been  published  by  their  authority,  containing 
a  sermon  of  Dr.  Price,  with  the  Duke  de  Rochefoucault's  and 
the  Archbishop  of  Aix's  letter,  and  several  other  documents 
annexed.  The  whole  of  that  publication,  with  the  manifest 
design  of  connecting  the  affairs  of  France  with  those  of 
England,  by  drawing  us  into  an  imitation  of  the  conduct  of 
the  National  Assembly,  gave  me  a  considerable  degree  of 
uneasiness.  The  effect  of  that  conduct  upon  the  power, 
credit,  prosperity,  and  tranquillity  of  France,  became  every 
day  more  evident.  The  form  of  constitution  to  be  settled, 
for  its  future  polity,  became  more  clear.  We  are  now  in  a 
condition  to  discern,  with  tolerable  exactness,  the  true 
nature  of  the  object  held  up  to  our  imitation.  If  the  pru- 
dence of  reserve   and   decorum   dictates   silence   in   some 


REASONS  FOR  APPREHENSION.  II 

circumstances,  in  others  prudence  of  an  higher  order  may 
justify  us  in  speaking  our  thoughts.  The  beginnings  of 
confusion  with  us  in  England  are  at  present  feeble  enough  ; 
but  with  you,  we  have  seen  an  infancy  still  more  feeble, 
growing  by  moments  into  a  strength  to  heap  mountains 
upon  mountains,  and  to  wage  war  with  Heaven  itself.  When- 
ever our  neighbour's  house  is  on  fire,  it  cannot  be  amiss  for 
the  engines  to  play  a  little  on  our  own.  Better  to  be 
despised  for  too  anxious  apprehensions,  than  ruined  by  too 
confident  a  security. 

Solicitous  chiefly  for  the  peace  of  my  own  country,  but 
by  no  means  unconcerned  for  your's,  I  wish  to  communi- 
cate more  largely,  what  was  at  first  intended  only  for  your 
private  satisfaction.  I  shall  still  keep  your  affairs  in  my  eye, 
and  continue  to  address  myself  to  you.  Indulging  myself  in 
the  freedom  of  epistolary  intercourse,  I  beg  leave  to  throw 
out  my  thoughts,  and  express  my  feelings,  just  as  they  arise 
in  my  mind,  with  very  little  attention  to  formal  method. 
I  set  out  with  the  proceedings  of  the  Revolution  Society; 
but  I  shall  not  confine  myself  to  them.  Is  it  possible  I 
should  ?  It  looks  to  me  as  if  I  were  in  a  great  crisis,  not  of 
the  affairs  of  France  alone,  but  of  all  Europe,  perhaps  of 
more  than  Europe.  All  circumstances  taken  together,  the 
French  revolution  is  the  most  astonishing  that  has  hitherto 
happened  in  the  world.  The  most  wonderful  things  are 
brought  about  in  many  instances  by  means  the  most  absurd 
and  ridiculous ;  in  the  most  ridiculous  modes ;  and  appar- 
ently, by  the  most  contemptible  instruments.  Every  thing 
seems  out  of  nature  in  this  strange  chaos  of  levity  and 
ferocity,  and  of  all  sorts  of  crimes  jumbled  together  with  all 
sorts  of  follies.  In  viewing  this  monstrous  tragi-comic 
scene,  the  most  opposite  passions  necessarily  succeed,  and 
sometimes  mix  with  each  other  in  the  mind:  alternate 
laughter  and  tears ;  alternate  scorn  and  horror. 


1 2  RE  VOL  UTION  IN  FRA  NCE. 

It  cannot  however  be  denied,  that  to  some  this  strange 
scene  appeared  in  quite  another  point  of  view.  Into  them 
it  inspired  no  other  sentiments  than  those  of  exultation  and 
rapture.  They  saw  nothing  in  what  has  been  done  in 
France,  but  a  firm  and  temperate  exertion  of  freedom ;  so 
consistent,  on  the  whole,  with  morals  and  with  piety,  as  to 
make  it  deserving  not  only  of  the  secular  applause  of  dashing 
Machiavelian  politicians,  but  to  render  it  a  fit  theme  for  all 
the  devout  effusions  of  sacred  eloquence. 

On  the  forenoon  of  the  4th  of  November  last,  Doctor 
Richard  Price,  a  n  on- con  forming  minister  of  eminence, 
preached  at  the  dissenting  meeting-house  of  the  Old  Jewry, 
to  his  club  or  society,  a  very  extraordinary  miscellaneous 
sermon,  in  which  there  are  some  good  moral  and  religious 
sentiments,  and  not  ill  expressed,  mixed  up  in  a  sort  of 
porridge  of  various  political  opinions  and  reflections :  but 
the  revolution  in  France  is  the  grand  ingredient  in  the 
cauldron.  I  consider  the  address  transmitted  by  the  Re- 
volution Society  to  the  National  Assembly,  through  Earl 
Stanhope,  as  originating  in  the  principles  of  the  sermon,  and 
as  a  corollary  from  them.  It  was  moved  by  the  preacher  of 
that  discourse.  It  was  passed  by  those  who  came  reeking 
from  the  effect  of  the  sermon,  without  any  censure  or  qualifi- 
cation, expressed  or  implied.  If,  however,  any  of  the  gentle- 
men concerned  shall  wish  to  separate  the  sermon  from  the 
resolution,  they  know  how  to  acknowledge  the  one,  and  to 
disavow  the  other.     They  may  do  it :  I  cannot. 

For  my  part,  I  looked  on  that  sermon  as  the  public 
declaration  of  a  man  much  connected  with  literary  caballers, 
and  intriguing  philosophers ;  with  political  theologians,  and 
theological  politicians,  both  at  home  and  abroad.  I  know 
they  set  him  up  as  a  sort  of  oracle ;  because,  with  the  best 
intentions  in  the  world,  he  naturzWy  p/ii'h'pptzes,  and  chaunts 
his  prophetic  song  in  exact  unison  with  their  designs. 


DR.   price's  sermon.  1 3 

That  sermon  is  in  a  strain  which  I  believe  has  not  been 
heard  in  this  kingdom,  in  any  of  the  pulpits  which  are 
tolerated  or  encouraged  in  it,  since  the  year  1648,  when  a 
predecessor  of  Dr.  Price,  the  Reverend  Hugh  Peters,  made 
the  vault  of  the  king's  own  chapel  at  St.  James's  ring  with 
the  honour  and  privilege  of  the  Saints,  who,  with  the  '  high 
praises  of  God  in  their  mouths,  and  a  fwo-edged  sword  in 
their  hands,  were  to  execute  judgment  on  the  heathen,  and 
punishments  upon  the  people;  to  bind  their  kings  with 
chains,  and  their  nobles  with  fetters  of  iron*.'  Few  harangues 
from  the  pulpit,  except  in  the  days  of  your  league  in  France, 
or  in  the  days  of  our  solemn  league  and  covenant  inXngland, 
have  ever  breathed  less  of  the  spirit  of  moderation  than  this 
lecture  in  the  Old  Jewry.  Supposing,  however,  that  some- 
thing like  moderation  were  visible  in  this  political  sermon; 
yet  politics  and  the  pulpit  are  terms  that  have  little  agree- 
ment. No  sound  ought  to  be  heard  in  the  church  but  the 
healing  voice  of  Christian  charity.  The  cause  of  civil  liberty 
and  civil  government  gains  as  little  as  that  of  religion  by  this 
confusion  of  duties.  Those  who  quit  their  proper  character, 
to  assume  what  does  not  belong  to  them,  are,  for  the  greater 
part,  ignorant  both  of  the  character  they  leave,  and  of  the 
character  they  assume.  Wholly  unacquainted  with  the  world 
in  which  they  are  so  fond  of  meddling,  and  inexperienced  in 
all  its  affairs,  on  which  they  pronounce  with  so  much  confi- 
dence, they  have  nothing  of  politics  but  the  passions  they 
excite.  Surely  the  church  is  a  place  where  one  day's  truce 
ought  to  be  allowed  to  the  dissensions  and  animosities  of 
mankind. 

This  pulpit  style,  revived  after  so  long  a  discontinuance, 

had  to  me  the  air  of  novelty,  and  of  a  novelty  not  wholly 

without  danger.     I   do  not  charge  this  danger  equally  to 

every  part  of  the  discourse.     The  hint  given  to  a  noble  and 

*  Psalm  cxlix. 


14  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

reverend  lay-divine,  who  is  supposed  high  in  office  in  one  of 
our  universities*,  and  to  other  lay-divines  '  of  rank  and  litera- 
ture,' may  be  proper  and  seasonable,  though  somewhat  new. 
If  the  noble  Seekers  should  find  nothing  to  satisfy  their  pious 
fancies  in  the  old  staple  of  the  national  church,  or  in  all  the 
rich  variety  to  be  found  in  the  well-assorted  warehouses  of 
the  dissenting  congregations.  Dr.  Price  advises  them  to  im- 
prove upon  non  conformity ;  and  to  set  up,  each  of  them,  a 
separate  meeting-house  upon  his  own  particular  principles  f- 
It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  this  reverend  divine  should 
be  so  earnest  for  setting  up  new  churches,  and  so  perfectly 
indifferent  concerning  the  doctrine  which  may  be  taught  in 
them.  His  zeal  is  of  a  curious  character.  It  is  not  for  the 
propagation  of  his  own  opinions,  but  of  any  opinions.  It  is 
not  for  the  diffusion  of  truth,  but  for  the  spreading  of  con- 
tradiction. Let  the  noble  teachers  but  dissent,  it  is  no 
matter  from  whom  or  from  what.  This  great  point  once 
secured,  it  is  taken  for  granted  their  religion  will  be  rational 
and  manly.  I  doubt  whether  religion  would  reap  all  the 
benefits  which  the  calculating  divine  computes  from  this 
'  great  company  of  great  preachers.'  It  would  certainly  be 
a  valuable  addition  of  nondescripts  to  the  ample  collection 
of  known  classes,  genera  and  species,  which  at  present 
beautify  the  horius  siccus  of  dissent.  A  sermon  from  a 
noble  duke,  or  a  noble  marquis,  or  a  noble  earl,  or  baron 
bold,  would  certainly  increase  and  diversify  the  amusements 
of  this  town,  which  begins  to  grow  satiated  with  the  uniform 
round  of  its  vapid  dissipations.     I  should  only  stipulate  that 

*  Discourse  on  the  Love  of  our  Country,  Nov.  4, 1 789,  by  Dr.  Richard 
Price,  3d  edition,  p.  17  and  18. 

t  'Those  who  dislike  that  mode  of  worship  which  is  prescribed  by 
public  authority  ought,  if  they  can  find  no  worship  out  of  the  church 
•which  they  approve,  to  set  up  a  separate  worship  for  themselves ;  and  by 
doing  this,  and  giving  an  example  of  a  rational  and  manly  worship, 
men  of  weight  from  their  ranJi  and  literature  may  do  the  greatest  service 
to  society  and  the  world.'     P.  18.  Dr.  Price's  Sermon. 


PRICE   ON   THE   TENURE   OF   THE   CROWN.  1 5 

these  new  Me!;s-Johns  in  robes  and  coronets  should  keep 
some  sort  of  bounds  in  the  democratic  and  levelling  prin- 
ciples which  are  expected  from  their  titled  pulpits.  The  new 
evangelists  will,  I  dare  say,  disappoint  the  hopes  that  are  con- 
ceived of  them.  They  will  not  become,  literally  as  well  as 
figuratively,  polemic  divines,  nor  be  disposed  so  to  drill  their 
congregations  that  they  may,  as  in  former  blessed  times, 
preach  their  doctrines  to  regiments  of  dragoons,  and  corps  of 
infantry  and  artillery.  Such  arrangements,  however  favour- 
able to  the  cause  of  compulsory  freedom,  civil  and  religious, 
may  not  be  equally  conducive  to  the  national  tranquillity: 
These  few  restrictions  I  hope  are  no  great  stretches  of 
intolerance,  no  very  violent  exertions  of  despotism. 

But  I  may  say  of  our  preacher,  '  utinam.  nugis  tota  ilia 
dedissei  iempora  sceviiicB.' — All  things  in  this  his  fulminating 
bull  are  not  of  so  innoxious  a  tendency.  His  doctrines 
affect  our  constitution  in  its  vital  parts.  He  tells  the  Revo- 
lution Society,  in  this  political  sermon,  that  his  majesty  '  is 
almost  the  only  lawful  king  in  the  world,  because  the  only 
one  who  owes  his  crown  to  the  choice  of  his  people.'  As  to 
the  kings  of  the  world,  all  of  whom  (except  one)  this  arch- 
pontiff  of  the  rights  of  men,  with  all  the  plenitude,  and  with 
more  than  the  boldness  of  the  papal  deposing  power  in  its 
meridian  fervour  of  the  twelfth  century,  puts  into  one 
sweeping  clause  of  ban  and  anathema,  and  proclaims 
usurpers  by  circles  of  longitude  and  latitude,  over  the 
whole  globe,  it  behoves  them  to  consider  how  they  admit 
into  their  territories  these  apostolic  missionaries,  who  are  to 
tell  their  subjects  they  are  not  lawful  kings.  That  is  their 
concern.  It  is  ours,  as  a  domestic  interest  of  some  moment, 
seriously  to  consider  the  solidity  of  the  only  principle  upon 
which  these  gentlemen  acknowledge  a  king  of  Great  Britain 
to  be  entitled  to  their  allegiance. 


1 6  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

This  doctrine,  as  applied  to  the  prince  now  on  the  British 
throne,  either  is  nonsense,  and  therefore  neither  true  nor 
false,  or  it  affirms  a  most  unfounded,  dangerous,  illegal,  and 
unconstitutional  position.  According  to  this  spiritual  doctor 
of  politics,  if  his  majesty  does  not  owe  his  crown  to  the 
choice  of  his  people,  he  is  no  lawful  king.  Now  nothing 
can  be  more  untrue  than  that  the  crown  of  this  kingdom  is 
so  held  by  his  majesty.  Therefore  if  you  follow  their  rule, 
the  king  of  Great  Britain,  who  most  certainly  does  not  owe 
his  high  office  to  any  form  of  popular  election,  is  in  no 
respect  better  than  the  rest  of  the  gang  of  usurpers,  who 
reign,  or  rather  rob,  all  over  the  face  of  this  our  miserable 
world,  without  any  sort  of  right  or  title  to  the  allegiance 
of  their  people.  The  policy  of  this  general  doctrine, 
so  qualified,  is  evident  enough.  The  propagators  of  this 
political  gospel  are  in  hopes  their  abstract  principle  (their 
principle  that  a  popular  choice  is  necessary  to  the  legal 
existence  of  the  sovereign  magistracy)  would  be  overlooked 
whilst  the  king  of  Great  Britain  was  not  affected  by  it.  In 
the  mean  time  the  ears  of  their  congregations  would  be 
gradually  habituated  to  it,  as  if  it  were  a  first  principle 
admitted  without  dispute.  For  the  present  it  would  only 
operate  as  a  theory,  pickled  in  the  preserving  juices  of  pulpit 
eloquence,  and  laid  by  for  future  use.  Condo  et  comporio 
qu(2  mox  depromere  possim.  By  this  policy,  whilst  our 
government  is  soothed  with  a  reservation  in  its  favour,  to 
which  it  has  no  claim,  the  security,  which  it  has  in  common 
with  all  governments,  so  far  as  opinion  is  security,  is  taken 
away. 

Thus  these  politicians  proceed,  whilst  little  notice  is  taken 
of  their  doctrines  :  but  when  they  come  to  be  examined 
upon  the  plain  meaning  of  their  words  and  the  direct 
tendency  of  their  doctrines,  then  equivocations  and  slippery 
constructions   come   into   play.     When   they  say  the   king 


THE   CROWN  HEREDITARY.  1 7 

owes  his  crown  to  the  choice  of  his  people,  and  is  therefore 
the  only  lawful  sovereign  in  the  world,  they  will  perhaps  tell 
us  they  mean  to  say  no  more  than  that  some  of  the  king's 
predecessors  have  been  called  to  the  throne  by  some  sort  of 
choice ;  and  therefore  he  owes  his  crown  to  the  choice  of 
his  people.  Thus,  by  a  miserable  subterfuge,  they  hope  to 
render  their  proposition  safe,  by  rendering  it  nugatory. 
They  are  welcome  to  the  asylum  they  seek  for  their  offence, 
since  they  take  refuge  in  their  folly.  For,  if  you  admit  this 
interpretation,  how  does  their  idea  of  election  differ  from 
our  idea  of  inheritance  ?  And  how  does  the  settlement  of  the 
crown  in  the  Brunswick  Une  derived  from  James  the  first, 
come  to  legalize  our  monarchy,  rather  than  that  of  any  of 
the  neighbouring  countries  ?  At  some  time  or  other,  to  be 
sure,  all  the  beginners  of  dynasties  were  chosen  by  those 
who  called  them  to  govern.  There  is  ground  enough  for 
the  opinion  that  all  the  kingdoms  of  Europe  were,  at  a  re- 
mote period,  elective,  with  more  or  fewer  limitations  in  the 
objects  of  choice  ;  but  whatever  kings  might  have  been  here 
or  elsewhere,  a  thousand  years  ago,  or  in  whatever  manner 
the  ruling  dynasties  of  England  or  France  may  have  begun, 
the  King  of  Great  Britain  is  at  this  day  king  by  a  fixed  rule 
of  succession,  according  to  the  laws  of  his  country  ;  and 
whilst  the  legal  conditions  of  the  compact  of  sovereignty  are 
performed  by  him  (as  they  are  performed)  he  holds  his  crown 
in  contempt  of  the  choice  of  the  Revolution  Society,  who 
have  not  a  single  vote  for  a  king  amongst  them,  either 
individually  or  collectively;  though  I  make  no  doubt  they 
would  soon  erect  themselves  into  an  electoral  college,  if 
things  were  ripe  to  give  effect  to  their  claim.  His  majesty's 
heirs  and  successors,  each  in  his  time  and  order,  will  come 
to  the  crown  with  the  same  contempt  of  their  choice  with 
which  his  majesty  has  succeeded  to  that  he  wears. 

Whatever  may  be   the  success  of  evasion  in  explaining 

VOL.    11.  C 


l8  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE: 

away  the  gross  error  of/acf,  which  supposes  that  his  majest}' 
(though  he  holds  it  in  concurrence  with  the  wishes)  owes 
his  crown  to  the  choice  of  his  people,  yet  nothing  can  evade 
their  full  explicit  declaration,  concerning  the  principle  of  a 
right  in  the  people  to  choose,  which  right  is  directly  main- 
tained, and  tenaciously  adhered  to.  All  the  oblique  insinua- 
tions concerning  election  bottom  in  this  proposition,  and  are 
referable  to  it.  Lest  the  foundation  of  the  king's  exclusive 
legal  title  should  pass  fpr  a  mere  rant  of  adulatory  freedom, 
the  political  Divine  proceeds  dogmatically  to  assert*,  that  by 
the  principles  of  the  Revolution  the  people  of  England  have 
acquired  three  fundamental  rights,  all  which,  with  him,  com- 
pose one  system,  and  lie  together  in  one  short  sentence; 
namely,  that  we  have  acquired  a  right 

1.  'To  choose  our  own  governors.' 

2.  *  To  cashier  them  for  misconduct.' 

3.  '  To  frame  a  government  for  ourselves.* 

This  new,  and  hitherto  unheard-of  bill  of  rights,  though 
made  in  the  name  of  the  whole  people,  belongs  to  those 
gentlemen  and  their  faction  only.  The  body  of  the  people 
of  England  have  no  share  in  it.  They  utterly  disclaim  it. 
They  will  resist  the  practical  assertion  of  it  with  their  lives 
and  fortunes.  They  are  bound  to  do  so  by  the  laws  of  their 
country,  made  at  the  time  of  that  very  Revolution,  which  is 
appealed  to  in  favour  of  the  fictitious  rights  claimed  by  the 
society  which  abuses  its  name. 

These  gentlemen  of  the  Old  Jewry,  in  all  their  reasonings 
on  the  Revolution  of  1688,  have  a  revolution  which  hap- 
pened in  England  about  forty  years  before,  and  the  late 
French  revolution,  so  much  before  their  eyes,  and  in  their 
hearts,  that  they  are  constantly  confounding  all  the  three 
together.     It  is  necessary  that  we  should  separate  what  they 

•  P.  34,  Discourse  on  the  Love  of  our  Country,  by  Dr.  Price. 


THE  BILL  OF  RIGHTS,  AND  ACT  OF  SETTLEMENT.   I9 

confound.  We  must  recall  their  erring  fancies  to  the  acfs  of 
the  Revolution  which  we  revere,  for  the  discovery  of  its  true 
principles.  If  the  principles  of  the  Revolution  of  1688  are 
any  where  to  be  found,  it  is  in  the  statute  called  the  Decla- 
ration of  Right.  In  that  most  wise,  sober,  and  considerate 
declaration,  drawn  up  by  great  lawyers  and  great  statesmen, 
and  not  by  warm  and  inexperienced  enthusiasts,  not  one 
word  is  said,  nor  one  suggestion  made,  of  a  general  right 
'  to  choose  our  own  governors ;  to  cashier  them  for  miscon- 
duct ;  and  to  form  a  government  for  ourselves.' 

This  Declaration  of  Right  (the  act  of  the  ist  of  William 
and  Mary,  sess.  2.  ch.  2)  is  the  corner-stone  of  our  constitu- 
tion, as  reinforced,  explained,  improved,  and  in  its  funda- 
mental principles  for  ever  settled.  It  is  called  '  An  act  for 
declaring  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  subject,  and  for 
settling  the  succession  of  the  crown.'  You  will  observe,  that 
these  rights  and  this  succession  are  declared  in  one  body, 
and  bound  indissolubly  together. 

A  few  years  after  this  period,  a  second  opportunity  offered 
for  asserting  a  right  of  election  to  the  crown.  On  the  pros- 
pect of  a  total  failure  of  issue  from  King  William,  and  from 
the  Princess,  afterwards  Queen  Anne,  the  consideration 
of  the  settlement  of  the  crown,  and  of  a  further  security 
for  the  liberties  of  the  people,  again  came  before*the  legisla- 
ture. Did  they  this  second  time  make  any  provision  for 
legalizing  the  crown  on  the  spurious  Revolution  principles 
of  the  Old  Jewry .?  No.  They  followed  the  principles  which 
prevailed  in  the  Declaration  of  Right ;  indicating  with  more 
precision  the  persons  who  were  to  inherit  in  the  Protestant 
line.  This  act  also  incorporated,  by  the  same  policy,  our 
liberties,  and  an  hereditary  succession  in  the  same  act. 
Instead  of  a  right  to  choose  our  own  governors,  they 
declared  that  the  succession  in  that  line  (the  protestant  line 
drawn  from  James  the  First)  was  absolutely  necessary  '  for 

c  2 


30  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

the  peace,  quiet,  and  security  of  the  realm,'  and  that  it 
was  equally  urgent  on  them  '  to  maintain  a  certainly  in  the 
succession  thereof,  to  which  the  subjects  may  safely  have 
recourse  for  their  protection.'  Both  these  acts,  in  which  are 
heard  the  unerring,  unambiguous  oracles  of  Revolution 
policy,  instead  of  countenancing  the  delusive,  gypsey  pre- 
dictions of  a  'right  to  choose  our  governors,*  prove  to 
a  demonstration  how  totally  adverse  the  wisdom  of  the 
nation  was  from  turning  a  case  of  necessity  into  a  rule 
of  law. 

'  Unquestionably  there  was  at  the  Revolution,  in  the  person 
of  King  William,  a  small  and  a  temporary  deviation  from 
the  strict  order  of  regular  hereditary  succession;  but  it  is 
against  all  genuine  principles  of  jurisprudence  to  draw  a 
principle  from  a  law  made  in  a  special  case,  and  regarding 
an  individual  person.  Privilegium  non  transit  in  exemplum. 
If  ever  there  was  a  time  favourable  for  establishing  the 
principle,  that  a  king  of  popular  choice  was  the  only  legal 
king,  without  all  doubt  it  was  at  the  Revolution.  Its  not 
being  done  at  that  time  is  a  proof  that  the  nation  was  of 
opinion  it  ought  not  to  be  done  at  any  time.  There  is  no 
person  so  completely  ignorant  of  our  history,  as  not  to 
know,  that  the  majority  in  parliament  of  both  parties  were 
so  little  disposed  to  any  thing  resembling  that  principle,  that 
at  first  they  were  determined  to  place  the  vacant  crown,  not 
on  the  head  of  the  prince  of  Orange,  but  on  that  of  his  wife 
Mar)',  daughter  of  King  James,  the  eldest  born  of  the  issue 
of  that  king,  which  they  acknowledged  as  undoubtedly  his. 
It  would  be  to  repeat  a  very  trite  story,  to  recall  to  your 
memory  all  those  circumstances  which  demonstrated  that 
their  accepting  king  William  was  not  properly  a  choice  ;  but, 
to  all  those  who  did  not  wish,  in  effect  to  recall  King  James, 
or  to  deluge  their  country  in  blood,  and  again  to  bring 
their  religion,  laws,  and  liberties  into  the  peril  they  had  just 


THE  BILL   OF  RIGHTS.  SI 

escaped,  it  was  an  act  of  necessity,  in  the  strictest  moral 
sense  in  which  necessity  can  be  taken. 

In  the  very  act,  in  which  for  a  time,  and  in  a  single  case, 
parliament  departed  from  the  strict  order  of  inheritance,  in 
favour  of  a  prince,  who,  though  not  next,  was  however  very 
near  in  the  line  of  succession,  it  is  curious  to  observe 
how  Lord  Somers,  who  drew  the  bill  called  the  Declaration 
of  Right,  has  comported  himself  on  that  delicate  occasion. 
It  is  curious  to  observe  with  what  address  this  temporary 
solution  of  continuity  is  kept  from  the  eye ;  whilst  all  that 
could  be  found  in  this  act  of  necessity  to  countenance  the 
idea  of  an  hereditary  succession  is  brought  forward,  and 
fostered,  and  made  the  most  of,  by  this  great  man,  and  by 
the  legislature  who  followed  him.  Quitting  the  dry,  im- 
perative style  of  an  act  of  parUament,  he  makes  the  lords 
and  commons  fall  to  a  pious,  legislative  ejaculation,  and 
declare,  that  they  consider  it  '  as  a  marvellous  providence, 
and  merciful  goodness  of  God  to  this  nation,  to  preserve 
their  said  majesties'  royal  persons  most  happily  to  reign 
over  us  on  the  throne  of  their  ancestors,  for  which,  from  the 
bottom  of  their  hearts,  they  return  their  humblest  thanks 
and  praises.' — The  legislature  plainly  had  in  view  the  Act  of 
Recognition  of  the  first  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  Chap.  3d,  and  of 
that  of  James  the  First,  Chap,  ist,  both  acts  strongly  declara- 
tory of  the  inheritable  nature  of  the  crown ;  and  in  many 
parts  they  follow,  with  a  nearly  literal  precision,  the  words 
and  even  the  form  of  thanksgiving,  which  is  found  in  these 
old  declaratory  statutes. 

The  two  houses,  in  the  act  of  king  William,  did  not  thank 
God  that  they  had  found  a  fair  opportunity  to  assert  a  right 
to  choose  their  own  governors,  much  less  to  make  an  elec- 
tion the  only  lawful  title  to  the  crown.  Their  having  been 
in  a  condition  to  avoid  the  very  appearance  of  it,  as  much 
as  possible,   was   by   them   considered    as    a    providential 


22  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

escape.  They  threw  a  politic,  well-wrought  veil  over  every 
circumstance  tending  to  weaken  the  rights,  which  in  the 
meliorated  order  of  succession  they  meant  to  perpetuate; 
or  which  might  furnish  a  precedent  for  any  future  departure 
from  what  they  had  then  settled  for  ever.  Accordingly,  that 
they  might  not  relax  the  nerves  of  their  monarchy,  and  that 
they  might  preserve  a  close  conformity  to  the  practice  of 
their  ancestors,  as  it  appeared  in  the  declaratory  statutes  of 
Queen  Mary*  and  Queen  Elizabeth,  in  the  next  clause  they 
vest,  by  recognition,  in  their  majesties,  all  the  legal  preroga- 
tives of  the  crown,  declaring,  '  that  in  them  they  are  most 
fully,  rightfully,  and  intirely  invested,  incorporated,  united, 
and  annexed.'  In  the  clause  which  follows,  for  preventing 
questions,  by  reason  of  any  pretended  titles  to  the  crown, 
they  declare  (observing  also  in  this  the  traditionary  language, 
along  with  the  traditionary  policy  of  the  nation,  and  repeat- 
ing as  from  a  rubric  the  language  of  the  preceding  acts  of 
Elizabeth  and  James)  that  on  the  preserving  '  a  certainty 
in  the  succession  thereof,  the  unity,  peace,  and  tranquillity  of 
this  nation  doth,  under  God,  wholly  depend.' 

They  knew  that  a  doubtful  title  of  succession  would 
but  too  much  resemble  an  election;  and  that  an  election 
would  be  utterly  destructive  of  the  *  unity,  peace,  and  tran- 
quillity of  this  nation,'  which  they  thought  to  be  con- 
siderations of  some  moment.  To  provide  for  these  objects, 
and  therefore  to  exclude  for  ever  the  Old  Jewry  doctrine  of 
'a  right  to  choose  our  own  governors,'  they  follow  with 
a  clause,  containing  a  most  solemn  pledge,  taken  from  the 
preceding  act  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  as  solemn  a  pledge 
as  ever  was  or  can  be  given  in  favour  of  an  hereditary 
succession,  and  as  solemn  a  renunciation  as  could  be  made 
of  the  principles  by  this  society  imputed  to  them.  *  The 
lords  spiritual  and  temporal,  and  commons,  do,  in  the  name 
*  I  St  Mary,  Sess.  3.  ch.  r. 


THE  BILL   OF  RIGHTS,   SECT.   8.         2$ 

of  all  the  people  aforesaid,  most  humbly  and  faithfully 
submit  themselves,  their  heirs  and  posterities  for  ever  ;  and  do 
faithfully  promise,  that  they  will  stand  to,  maintain,  and 
defend  their  said  majesties,  and  also  the  limitation  of  the 
crown,  herein  specified  and  contained,  to  the  utmost  of  their 
powers/  &c.  &c. 

So  far  is  it  from  being  true,  that  we  acquired  a  right  by 
the  Revolution  to  elect  our  kings,  that  if  we  had  pos- 
sessed it  before,  the  English  nation  did  at  that  time  most 
solemnly  renounce  and  abdicate  it,  for  themselves  and  for 
all  their  posterity  for  ever.  These  gentlemen  may  value 
themselves  as  much  as  they  please  on  their  whig  principles ; 
but  I  never  desire  to  be  thought  a  better  whig  than  Lord 
Somers ;  or  to  understand  the  principles  of  the  Revolution 
better  than  those  by  whom  it  was  brought  about ;  or  to  read 
in  the  declaration  of  right  any  mysteries  unknown  to  those 
whose  penetrating  style  has  engraved  in  our  ordinances,  and 
in  our  hearts,  the  words  and  spirit  of  that  immortal  law. 

It  is  true  that,  aided  with  the  powers  derived  from  force 
and  opportunity,  the  nation  was  at  that  time,  in  some  sense, 
free  to  take  what  course  it  pleased  for  filling  the  throne ;  but 
only  free  to  do  so  upon  the  same  grounds  on  which  they 
might  have  wholly  abolished  their  monarchy,  and  every  other 
part  of  their  constitution.  However  they  did  not  think  such 
bold  changes  within  their  commission.  It  is  indeed  difficult, 
perhaps  impossible,  to  give  limits  to  the  mere  abstract  com- 
petence of  the  supreme  power,  such  as  was  exercised  by 
parliament  at  that  time ;  but  the  limits  of  a  moral  compe- 
tence, subjecting,  even  in  powers  more  indisputably  sovereign, 
occasional  will  to  permanent  reason,  and  to  the  steady 
maxims  of  faith,  justice,  and  fixed  fundamental  policy,  are 
perfectly  intelligible,  and  perfectly  binding  upon  those  who 
exercise  any  authority,  under  any  name,  or  under  any  title, 
in  the  state.    The  house    of  lords,  for  instance,  is  not 


24  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

morally  competent  to  dissolve  the  house  of  commons ;  no, 
nor  even  to  dissolve  itself,  nor  to  abdicate,  if  it  would,  its 
portion  in  the  legislature  of  the  kingdom.  Though  a  king 
may  abdicate  for  his  own  person,  he  cannot  abdicate  for  the 
monarchy.  By  as  strong,  or  by  a  stronger  reason,  the  house 
of  commons  cannot  renounce  its  share  of  authority.  The 
engagement  and  pact  of  society,  which  generally  goes  by 
the  name  of  the  constitution,  forbids  such  invasion  and  such 
surrender.  The  constituent  parts  of  a  state  are  obliged  to 
hold  their  public  faith  with  each  other,  and  with  all  those 
who  derive  any  serious  interest  under  their  engagements,  as 
much  as  the  whole  state  is  bound  to  keep  its  faith  with 
separate  communities.  Otherwise  competence  and  power 
would  soon  be  confounded,  and  no  law  be  left  but  the  will 
of  a  prevailing  force.  On  this  principle  the  succession  of 
the  crown  has  always  been  what  it  now  is,  an  hereditary 
succession  by  law :  in  the  old  line  it  was  a  succession  by  the 
common  law ;  in  the  new,  by  the  statute  law,  operating  on 
the  principles  of  the  common  law,  not  changing  the  sub- 
stance, but  regulating  the  mode,  and  describing  the  persons. 
Both  these  descriptions  of  law  are  of  the  same  force,  and  are 
derived  from  an  equal  authority,  emanating  from  the  com- 
mon agreement  and  original  compact  of  the  state,  communi 
sponsione  reipubliccE,  and  as  such  are  equally  binding  on  king, 
and  people  too,  as  long  as  the  terms  are  observed,  and  they 
continue  the  same  body  politic. 

It  is  far  from  impossible  to  reconcile,  if  we  do  not  suffer 
ourselves  to  be  entangled  in  the  mazes  of  metaphysic 
sophistry,  the  use  both  of  a  fixed  rule  and  an  occasional 
deviation ;  the  sacredness  of  an  hereditary  principle  of  suc- 
cession in  our  government,  with  a  power  of  change  in  its 
application  in  cases  of  extreme  emergency.  Even  in  that 
extremity  (if  we  take  the  measure  of  our  rights  by  our 
exercise  of  them  at  the  Revolution)  the  change  is  to  be  con- 


PRINCIPLE   OF  CONSERVATION.  2$ 

fined  to  the  peccant  part  only :  to  the  part  which  produced 
the  necessary  deviation;  and  even  then  it  is  to  be  effected 
without  a  decomposition  of  the  whole  civil  and  political  mass, 
for  the  purpose  of  originating  a  new  civil  order  out  of  the 
first  elements  of  society. 

A  state  without  the  means  of  some  change  is  without  the  y'' 
means  of  its  conservation.  Without  such  means  it  might 
even  risque  the  loss  of  that  part  of  the  constitution  which  it 
wished  the  most  religiously  to  preserve.  The  two  prin- 
ciples of  conservation  and  correction  operated  strongly  at 
the  two  critical  periods  of  the  Restoration  and  Revolution, 
when  England  found  itself  without  a  king.  At  both  those 
periods  the  nation  had  lost  the  bond  of  union  in  their 
antient  edifice;  they  did  not,  however,  dissolve  the  whole 
fabric.  On  the  contrary,  in  both  cases  they  regenerated  the 
deficient  part  of  the  old  constitution  through  the  parts  which 
were  not  impaired.  They  kept  these  old  parts  exactly  as 
they  were,  that  the  part  recovered  might  be  suited  to  them. 
They  acted  by  the  ancient  organized  states  in  the  shape 
of  their  old  organization,  and  not  by  the  organic  moleculcB  of 
a  disbanded  people.  At  no  time,  perhaps,  did  the  sovereign 
legislature  manifest  a  more  tender  regard  to  their  fundamental 
principle  of  British  constitutional  policy,  than  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution,  when  it  deviated  from  the  direct  line  of  heredi- 
tary succession.  The  crown  was  carried  somewhat  out  of 
the  line  in  which  it  had  before  moved ;  but  the  new  line  was 
derived  from  the  same  stock.  It  was  still  a  line  of  heredi- 
tary descent;  still  an  hereditary  descent  in  the  same  blood, 
though  an  hereditary  descent  qualified  with  protestantism. 
When  the  legislature  altered  the  direction,  but  kept  the 
principle,  they  shewed  that  they  held  it  inviolable. 

On  this  principle,  the  law  of  inheritance  had  admitted 
some  amendment  in  the  old  time,  and  long  before  the  sera 
of  the  Revolution.      Some  time   after  the  conquest  great 


26  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

questions  arose  upon  the  legal  principles  of  hereditary  de- 
scent. It  became  a  matter  of  doubt,  whether  the  heir  per 
capita  or  the  heir  per  stirpes  was  to  succeed ;  but  whether 
the  heir  per  capita  gave  way  when  the  heirdom  per  stirpes 
took  place,  or  the  Catholic  heir,  when  the  Protestant  was 
preferred,  the  inheritable  principle  survived  with  a  sort  of 
immortality  through  all  transmigrations — multosque  per  annos 
stat  for  tuna  domus  ei  avi  numerantur  avorum.  This  is  the 
spirit  of  our  constitution,  not  only  in  its  settled  course,  but 
in  all  its  revolutions.  Whoever  came  in,  or  however  he 
came  in,  whether  he  obtained  the  crown  by  law,  or  by  force, 
the  hereditary  succession  was  either  continued  or  adopted. 

The  gentlemen  of  the  Society  for  Revolutions  see  nothing 
in  that  of  1688  but  the  deviation  from  the  constitution;  and 
they  take  the  deviation  from  the  principle  for  the  principle. 
They  have  little  regard  to  the  obvious  consequences  of 
their  doctrine,  though  they  must  see,  that  it  leaves  positive 
authority  in  very  few  of  the  positive  institutions  of  this 
country.  When  such  an  unwarrantable  maxim  is  once 
established,  that  no  throne  is  lawful  but  the  elective,  no 
one  act  of  the  princes  who  preceded  the  sera  of  fictitious 
election  can  be  valid.  Do  these  theorists  mean  to  imi- 
tate some  of  their  predecessors,  who  dragged  the  bodies 
of  our  antient  sovereigns  out  of  the  quiet  of  their  tombs? 
Do  they  mean  to  attaint  and  disable  backwards  all  the  kings 
that  have  reigned  before  the  Revolution,  and  consequently 
to  stain  the  throne  of  England  with  the  blot  of  a  continual 
usurpation  ?  Do  they  mean  to  invalidate,  annul,  or  to  call 
into  question,  together  with  the  titles  of  the  whole  line  of 
our  kings,  that  great  body  of  our  statute  law  which  passed 
under  those  whom  they  treat  as  usurpers?  to  annul  laws 
of  inestimable  value  to  our  Hberties — of  as  great  value 
at  least  as  any  which  have  passed  at  or  since  the  period 
of  the  Revolution  ?    If  kings,  who  did  not  owe  their  crown 


THE  ACT  OF  SETTLEMENT.  37 

to  the  choice  of  their  people,  had  no  title  to  make  laws, 
what  will  become  of  the  statute  de  tallagio  non  concedendo  ? 
— of  the  petition  of  right  ? — of  the  act  of  habeas  corpus  ? 
Do  these  new  doctors  of  the  rights  of  men  presume  to 
assert,  that  King  James  the  Second,  who  came  to  the 
crown  as  next  of  blood,  according  to  the  rules  of  a  then 
unqualified  succession,  was  not  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
a  lawful  king  of  England,  before  he  had  done  any  of 
those  acts  which  were  justly  construed  into  an  abdication 
of  his  crown  ?  If  he  was  not,  much  trouble  in  parliament 
might  have  been  saved  at  the  period  these  gentlemen 
commemorate.  But  King  James  was  a  bad  king  with 
a  good  title,  and  not  an  usurper.  The  princes  who  suc- 
ceeded according  to  the  act  of  parliament  which  settled 
the  crown  on  the  electress  Sophia  and  on  her  descendants, 
being  Protestants,  came  in  as  much  by  a  title  of  inherit- 
ance as  King  James  did.  He  came  in  according  to  the 
law,  as  it  stood  at  his  accession  to  the  crown;  and  the 
princes  of  the  House  of  Brunswick  came  to  the  inherit- 
ance of  the  crown,  not  by  election,  but  by  the  law,  as  it 
stood  at  their  several  accessions  of  Protestant  descent  and 
inheritance,  as  I  hope  I  have  shewn  sufficiently. 

The  law  by  which  this  royal  family  is  specifically  destined 
to  the  succession,  is  the  act  of  the  I2th  and  13th  of  King 
William.  The  terms  of  this  act  bind  'us  and  our  heirs, 
and  our  posterity^  to  them,  their  heirs,  and  their  posterity^ 
being  Protestants,  to  the  end  of  time,  in  the  same  words 
as  the  declaration  of  right  had  bound  us  to  the  heirs  of 
King  William  and  Queen  Mary.  It  therefore  secures  both 
an  hereditary  crown  and  an  hereditary  allegiance.  On 
what  ground,  except  the  constitutional  policy  of  forming 
an  establishment  to  secure  that  kind  of  succession  which 
is  to  preclude  a  choice  of  the  people  for  ever,  could  the 
legislature  have  fastidiously  rejected  the  fair  and  abundant 


28  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE, 

choice  which  our  own  country  presented  to  them,  and 
searched  in  strange  lands  for  a  foreign  princess,  from 
whose  womb  the  line  of  our  future  rulers  were  to  derive 
their  title  to  govern  millions  of  men  through  a  series  of 
ages? 

The  Princess  Sophia  was  named  in  the  Act  of  Settle- 
ment of  the  1 2th  and  13th  of  King  William,  for  a  sfock 
and  root  of  inheritance  to  our  kings,  and  not  for  her  merits 
as  a  temporary  administratrix  of  a  power,  which  she  might 
not,  and  in  fact  did  not,  herself  ever  exercise.  She  was 
adopted  for  one  reason,  and  for  one  only,  because,  says 
the  act,  'the  most  excellent  Princess  Sophia,  Electress  and 
Dutchess  Dowager  of  Hanover,  is  daughter  of  the  most 
excellent  Princess  Elizabeth,  late  Queen  of  Bohemia, 
daughter  of  our  late  sovereign  lord  King  James  the  First, 
of  happy  memory,  and  is  hereby  declared  to  be  the  next 
in  succession  in  the  Protestant  line,'  &c.  &c. ;  *  and  the 
crown  shall  continue  to  the  heirs  of  her  body,  being  Pro- 
testants.' This  limitation  was  made  by  parliament,  that 
through  the  Princess  Sophia  an  inheritable  line,  not  only 
was  to  be  continued  in  future  but  (what  they  thought  very 
material)  that  through  her  it  was  to  be  connected  with  the 
old  stock  of  inheritance  in  King  James  the  First ;  in  order 
that  the  monarchy  might  preserve  an  unbroken  unity  through 
all  ages,  and  might  be  preserved,  with  safety  to  our  religion, 
in  the  old  approved  mode  by  descent,  in  which,  if  our 
liberties  had  been  once  endangered,  they  had  often,  through 
all  storms  and  struggles  of  prerogative  and  privilege,  been 
preserved.  They  did  well.  No  experience  has  taught  us, 
that  in  any  other  course  or  method  than  that  of  an  hereditary 
crown,  our  liberties  can  be  regularly  perpetuated  and  pre- 
served sacred  as  oiu-  hereditary  right.  An  irregular,  con- 
vulsive movement  may  be  necessary  to  throw  off  an  irregular, 
convulsive  disease.     But  the  course  of  succession  is   the 


KEASONS  FOR   THIS  RETROSPECT,  29 

liealthy  habit  of  the  British  constitution.  Was  it  that  the 
legislature  wanted,  at  the  act  for  the  limitation  of  the  crown 
in  the  Hanoverian  line,  drawn  through  the  female  descend- 
ants of  James  the  First,  a  due  sense  of  the  inconveniencies 
of  having  two  or  three,  or  possibly  more,  foreigners  in 
succession  to  the  British  throne  ?  No !  They  had  a  due 
sense  of  the  evils  which  might  happen  from  such  foreign 
rule,  and  more  than  a  due  sense  of  them.  But  a  more 
decisive  proof  cannot  be  given  of  the  full  conviction  of 
the  British  nation,  that  the  principles  of  the  Revolution 
did  not  authorize  them  to  elect  kings  at  their  pleasure, 
and  without  any  attention  to  the  antient  fundamental 
principles  of  our  government,  than  their  continuing  to 
adopt  a  plan  of  hereditary  Protestant  succession  in  the 
old  line,  with  all  the  dangers  and  all  the  inconveniencies 
of  its  being  a  foreign  line  full  before  their  eyes,  and  operat- 
ing with  the  utmost  force  upon  their  minds. 

A  few  years  ago  I  should  be  ashamed  to  overload  a 
matter,  so  capable  of  supporting  itself,  by  the  then  un- 
necessary support  of  any  argument;  but  this  seditious, 
unconstitutional  doctrine  is  now  publicly  taught,  avowed, 
and  printed.  The  dislike  I  feel  to  revolutions,  the  signals 
for  which  have  so  often  been  given  from  pulpits ;  the 
spirit  of  change  that  is  gone  abroad;  the  total  contempt 
which  prevails  with  you,  and  may  come  to  prevail  with 
us,  of  all  ancient  institutions,  when  set  in  opposition  to  a 
present  sense  of  convenience,  or  to  the  bent  of  a  present 
inclination:  all  these  considerations  make  it  not  unadvise- 
able,  in  my  opinion,  to  call  back  our  attention  to  the 
true  principles  of  our  own  domestic  laws;  that  you,  my 
French  friend,  should  begin  to  know,  and  that  we  should 
continue  to  cherish  them.  We  ought  not,  on  either  side 
of  the  water,  to  suffer  ourselves  to  be  imposed  upon 
by  the  counterfeit  wares  which  some  persons,  by  a  double 


30  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

fraud,  export  to  you  in  illicit  bottoms  as  raw  commodities 
of  British  growth,  though  wholly  alien  to  ouj  soil,  in  order 
afterwards  to  smuggle  them  back  again  into  this  country, 
manufactured  after  the  newest  Paris  fashion  of  an  im- 
proved liberty. 

The  people  of  England  will  not  ape  the  fashions  they 
have  never  tried;  nor  go  back  to  those  which  they  have 
found  mischievous  on  trial.  They  look  upon  the  legal 
hereditary  succession  of  their  crown  as  among  their  rights, 
not  as  among  their  wrongs;  as  a  benefit,  not  as  a  grievance; 
as  a  security  for  their  liberty,  not  as  a  badge  of  servitude. 
They  look  on  the  frame  of  their  commonwealth,  such  as 
it  stands,  to  be  of  inestimable  value ;  and  they  conceive 
the  undisturbed  succession  of  the  crown  to  be  a  pledge 
of  the  stability  and  perpetuity  of  all  the  other  members  of 
our  constitution. 

I  shall  beg  leave,  before  I  go  any  further,  to  take  notice 
of  some  paltry  artifices,  which  the  abettors  of  election  as 
the  only  lawful  title  to  the  crown,  are  ready  to  employ, 
in  order  to  render  the  support  of  the  just  principles  of 
our  constitution  a  task  somewhat  invidious.  These  sophis- 
ters  substitute  a  fictitious  cause,  and  feigned  personages, 
in  whose  favour  they  suppose  you  engaged,  whenever  you 
defend  the  inheritable  nature  of  the  crown.  It  is  common 
with  them  to  dispute  as  if  they  were  in  a  conflict  with  some 
of  those  exploded  fanatics  of  slavery,  who  formerly  main- 
tained, what  I  believe  no  creature  now  maintains,  '  that  the 
crown  is  held  by  divine,  hereditary,  and  indefeasible  right.' — 
These  old  fanatics  of  single  arbitrary  power  dogmatized  as 
if  hereditary  royalty  was  the  only  lawful  government  in  the 
world,  just  as  our  new  fanatics  of  popular  arbitrary  power 
maintain  that  a  popular  election  is  the  sole  lawful  source 
of  authority.  The  old  prerogative  enthusiasts,  it  is  true,  did 
speculate  foolishly,  and  perhaps  impiously  too,  as  if  monarchy 


*  CASHIERING   FOR  MISCONDUCT.*  3 1 

had  more  of  a  divine  sanction  than  any  other  mode  of 
government;  and  as  if  a  right  to  govern  by  inheritance 
were  in  strictness  indefeasible  in  every  person,  who  should 
be  found  in  the  succession  to  a  throne,  and  under  every 
circumstance,  which  no  civil  or  political  right  can  be. 
But  an  absurd  opinion  concerning  the  king's  hereditary 
right  to  the  crown  does  not  prejudice  one  that  is  rational, 
and  bottomed  upon  solid  principles  of  law  and  policy. 
If  all  the  absurd  theories  of  lawyers  and  divines  were  to 
vitiate  the  objects  in  which  they  are  conversant,  we  should 
have  no  law,  and  no  religion,  left  in  the  world.  But  an 
absurd  theory  on  one  side  of  a  question  forms  no  justifica- 
tion for  alledging  a  false  fact,  or  promulgating  mischievous 
maxims,  on  the  other. 

The  second  claim  of  the  Revolution  Society  is  *  a  right  of 
cashiering  their  governors  for  misconduct^  Perhaps  the  ap- 
prehensions our  ancestors  entertained  of  forming  such  a  pre- 
cedent as  that  *  of  cashiering  for  misconduct,'  was  the  cause 
that  the  declaration  of  the  act  which  implied  the  abdication 
of  King  James,  was,  if  it  had  any  fault,  rather  too  guarded, 
and  too  circumstantial*.  But  all  this  guard,  and  all  this 
accumulation  of  circumstances,  serves  to  shew  the  spirit 
of  caution  which  predominated  in  the  national  councils, 
in  a  situation  in  which  men  irritated  by  oppression,  and 
elevated  by  a  triumph  over  it,  are  apt  to  abandon  them- 
selves to  violent  and  extreme  courses :  it  shews  the  anxiety 
of  the  great  men  who  influenced  the  conduct  of  affairs  at 
that  great  event,  to  make  the  Revolution  a  parent  of  settle- 
ment, and  not  a  nursery  of  future  revolutions. 

*  '  That  King  James  the  second,  having  endeavoured  to  subvert  the 
constitution  of  the  kingdom,  by  breaking  the  original  contract  between 
king  and  people,  and  by  the  advice  of  Jesuits,  and  other  wicked  persons, 
having  violated  \ht  fundamental  laws,  and  having  withdrawn  himself  out 
of  the  kingdom,  hath  abdicated  the  government,  and  the  throne  is  thereby 
vacant^ 


32  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

No  government  could  stand  a  moment,  if  it  could  be 
blown  down  with  anything  so  loose  and  indefinite  as  an 
opinion  of  ^misconduct!  They  who  led  at  the  Revolution, 
grounded  the  virtual  abdication  of  King  James  upon  no 
such  light  and  uncertain  principle.  They  charged  him 
with  nothing  less  than  a  design,  confirmed  by  a  multitude 
of  illegal  overt  acts,  to  subvert  the  Protestant  church  and 
state,  and  \!i\€\x  fundamental,  unquestionable  laws  and  liber- 
ties :  they  charged  him  with  having  broken  the  original 
contract  between  king  and  people.  This  was  more  than 
misconduct.  A  grave  and  over-ruling  necessity  obliged 
them  to  take  the  step  they  took,  and  took  with  infinite 
reluctance,  as  under  that  most  rigorous  of  all  laws.  Their 
trust  for  the  future  preservation  'of  the  constitution  was 
not  in  future  revolutions.  The  grand  policy  of  all  their 
regulations  was  to  render  it  almost  impracticable  for  any 
future  sovereign  to  compel  the  states  of  the  kingdom  to 
have  again  recourse  to  those  violent  remedies.  They  left 
the  crown  what,  in  the  eye  and  estimation  of  law,  it  had 
ever  been,  perfectly  irresponsible.  In  order  to  lighten  the 
crown  still  further,  they  aggravated  responsibility  on  ministers 
of  state.  By  the  statute  of  the  ist  of  king  William,  sess.  2nd, 
called  '  the  act  for  declaring  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the 
subject,  and  for  settling  the  succession  of  the  crown,'  they 
enacted,  that  the  ministers  should  serve  the  crown  on  the 
terms  of  that  declaration.  They  secured  soon  after  the 
frequent  meetings  of  parliament,  by  which  the  whole  govern- 
ment would  be  under  the  constant  inspection  and  active 
controul  of  the  popular  representative  and  of  the  magnates 
of  the  kingdom.  In  the  next  great  constitutional  act,  that 
of  the  12th  and  13th  of  King  William,  for  the  further 
limitation  of  the  crown,  and  better  securing  the  rights  and 
liberties  of  the  subject,  they  provided,  'that  no  pardon 
under  the  great  seal  of  England  should  be  pleadable  to 


PRICE    ON  ADULATORY  ADDRESSES.  ^^ 

impeachment  by  the  commons  in  parliament.'  The  rule 
laid  down  for  government  in  the  Declaration  of  Right,  the 
constant  inspection  of  parliament,  the  practical  claim  of 
impeachment,  they  thought  infinitely  a  better  security  not 
only  for  their  constitutional  liberty,  but  against  the  vices 
of  administration,  than  the  reservation  of  a  right  so  difficult 
in  the  practice,  so  uncertain  in  the .  issue,  and  often  so 
mischievous  in  the  consequences,  as  that  of  'cashiering 
their  governors.' 

Dr.  Price,  in  this  sermon*,  condemns  very  properly  the 
practice  of  gross,  adulatory  addresses  to  kings.  Instead 
of  this  fulsome  style,  he  proposes  that  his  majesty  should 
be  told,  on  occasions  of  congratulation,  that  'he  is  to 
consider  himself  as  more  properly  the  servant  than  the 
sovereign  of  his  people.'  For  a  compliment,  this  new 
form  of  address  does  not  seem  to  be  very  soothing. 
Those  who  are  servants,  in  name,  as  well  as  in  effect, 
do  not  like  to  be  told  of  their  situation,  their  duty,  and 
their  obligations.  The  slave,  in  the  old  play,  tells  his 
master,  '  Haec  commemoratio  est  quasi  exprobraiio!  It  is  not 
pleasant  as  compliment;  it  is  not  wholesome  as  instruc- 
tion. After  all,  if  the  king  were  to  bring  himself  to  echo 
this  new  kind  of  address,  to  adopt  it  in  terms,  and  even 
to  take  the  appellation  of  Servant  of  the  People  as  his 
royal  style,  how  either  he  or  we  should  be  much  mended 
by  it,  I  cannot  imagine.  I  have  seen  very  assuming  letters, 
signed,  'Your  most  obedient,  humble  servant.'  The  proudest 
domination  that  ever  was  endured  on  earth  took  a  tide 
of  still  greater  humility  than  that  which  is  now  proposed 
for  sovereigns  by  the  Apostle  of  Liberty.  Kings  and 
nations  were  trampled  upon  by  the  foot  of  one  calling 
himself '  the  Servant  of  Servants ; '  and  mandates  for  deposing 
sovereigns  were  sealed  with  the  signet  of  '  the  Fisherman.' 

*   P.  22,  23,  24. 
VOL.    II.  D 


34  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE, 

I  should  have  considered  all  this  as  no  more  than  a  sort  of 
flippant  vain  discourse,  in  which,  as  in  an  unsavoury  fume, 
several  persons  suffer  the  spirit  of  liberty  to  evaporate,  if  it 
were  not  plainly  in  support  of  the  idea,  and  a  part  of  the 
scheme,  of  '  cashiering  kings  for  misconduct/  In  that  light 
it  is  worth  some  observation. 

Kings,  in  one  sense,  are  undoubtedly  the  servants  of  the 
people,  because  their  power  has  no  other  rational  end  than 
that  of  the  general  advantage ;  but  it  is  not  true  that  they  are, 
in  the  ordinary  sense  (by  our  constitution,  at  least)  any  thing 
like  servants ;  the  essence  of  whose  situation  is  to  obey  the 
commands  of  some  other,  and  to  be  removeable  at  pleasure. 
But  the  king  of  Great  Britain  obeys  no  other  person  ;  all 
other  persons  are  individually,  and  collectively  too,  under  him, 
and  owe  to  him  a  legal  obedience.  The  law,  which  knows 
neither  to  flatter  nor  to  insult,  calls  this  high  magistrate,  not 
our  servant,  as  this  humble  Divine  calls  him,  but  '  our  sove- 
reign Lord  the  King  ;'  and  we,  on  our  parts,  have  learned  to 
speak  only  the  primitive  language  of  the  law,  and  not  the 
confused  jargon  of  their  Babylonian  pulpits. 

As  he  is  not  to  obey  us,  but  as  we  are  to  obey  the  law  in 
him,  our  constitution  has  made  no  sort  of  provision  towards 
rendering  him,  as  a  servant,  in  any  degree  responsible.  Our 
constitution  knows  nothing  of  a  magistrate  like  the  Justicia  of 
Arragon;  nor  of  any  court  legally  appointed,  nor  of  any 
process  legally  settled  for  submitting  the  king  to  the  respon- 
sibility belonging  to  all  servants.  In  this  he  is  not  distin- 
guished from  the  commons  and  the  lords;  who,  in  their 
several  public  capacities,  can  never  be  called  to  an  account 
for  their  conduct;  although  the  Revolution  Society  chooses 
to  assert,  in  direct  opposition  to  one  of  the  wisest  and  most 
beautiful  parts  of  our  constitution,  that  'a  king  is  no  more 
than  the  first  servant  of  the  public,  created  by  it,  and 
responsible  to  it' 


THE  KING  NO  'SERVANT.*  ^^ 

111  would  our  ancestors  at  the  Revolution  have  deserved 
their  fame  for  wisdom,  if  they  had  found  no  security  for 
their  freedom,  but  in  rendering  their  government  feeble  in  its 
operations,  and  precarious  in  its  tenure;  if  they  had  been 
able  to  contrive  no  better  remedy  against  arbitrary  power 
than  civil  confusion.  Let  these  gentlemen  state  who  that 
representative  public  is  to  whom  they  will  affirm  the  king,  as 
a  servant,  to  be  responsible.  It  will  be  then  time  enough  for 
me  to  produce  to  them  the  positive  statute  law  which  affirms 
that  he  is  not. 

The  ceremony  of  cashiering  kings,  of  which  these  gentle- 
men talk  so  much  at  their  ease,  can  rarely,  if  ever,  be 
performed  without  force.  It  then  becomes  a  case  of  war,  and 
not  of  constitution.  Laws  are  commanded  to  hold  their 
tongues  amongst  arms ;  and  tribunals  fall  to  the  ground  with 
the  peace  they  are  no  longer  able  to  uphold.  The  Revo- 
lution of  1688  was  obtained  by  a  just  war,  in  the  only  case 
in  which  any  war,  and  much  more  a  civil  war,  can  be  just. 
'  Justa  bella  quibus  necessaria!  The  question  of  dethroning, 
or,  if  these  gentlemen  like  the  phrase  better,  '  cashiering ' 
kings,  will  always  be,  as  it  has  always  been,  an  extraordinary 
question  of  state,  and  wholly  out  of  the  law ;  a  question  (like 
all  other  questions  of  state)  of  dispositions,  and  of  means, 
and  of  probable  consequences,  rather  than  of  positive  rights. 
As  it  was  not  made  for  common  abuses,  so  it  is  not  to  be 
agitated  by  common  minds.  The  speculative  line  of  de- 
marcation, where  obedience  ought  to  end,  and  resistance 
must  begin,  is  faint,  obscure,  and  not  easily  definable.  It  is 
not  a  single  act,  or  a  single  event,  which  determines  it. 
Governments  must  be  abused  and  deranged  indeed,  before  it 
can  be  thought  of;  and  the  prospect  of  the  future  m^ust  be 
as  bad  as  the  experience  of  the  past.  When  things  are  in 
that  lamentable  condition,  the  nature  of  the  disease  is  to 
indicate  the  remedy  to  those  whom  nature  has  qualified  to 

D  2 


36  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

administer  in  extremities  this  critical,  ambiguous,  bitter  po- 
tion to  a  distempered  state.  Times  and  occasions,  and 
provocations,  will  teach  their  own  lessons.  The  wise  will 
determine  from  the  gravity  of  the  case;  the  irritable  from 
sensibility  to  oppression ;  the  high-minded  from  disdain  and 
indignation  at  abusive  power  in  unworthy  hands ;  the  brave 
and  bold  from  the  love  of  honourable  danger  in  a  generous 
cause :  but,  with  or  without  right,  a  revolution  will  be  the 
very  last  resource  of  the  thinking  and  the  good. 

Thk  third  head  of  right,  asserted  by  the  pulpit  of  the  Old 
Jewry,  namely,  the  '  right  to  form  a  government  for  ourselves,' 
has,  at  least,  as  little  countenance  from  any  thing  done  at  the 
Revolution,  either  in  precedent  or  principle,  as  the  two  first 
of  their  claims.  The  Revolution  was  made  to  preserve  our 
aniient  indisputable  laws  and  liberties,  and  that  antient 
constitution  of  government  which  is  our  only  security  for  law 
and  liberty.  If  you  are  desirous  of  knowing  the  spiiit  of  our 
constitution,  and  the  policy  which  predominated  in  that  great 
period  which  has  secured  it  to  this  hour,  pray  look  for  both 
in  our  histories,  in  our  records,  in  our  acts  of  parhament,  and 
journals  of  parliament,  and  not  in  the  sermons  of  the  Old 
Jewry,  and  the  after-dinner  toasts  of  the  Revolution  So- 
ciety. In  the  former  you  will  find  other  ideas  and  another 
language.  Such  a  claim  is  as  ill-suited  to  our  temper  and 
wishes  as  it  is  unsupported  by  any  appearance  of  authority. 
The  very  idea  of  the  fabrication  of  a  new  government  is 
enough  to  fill  us  with  disgust  and  horror.  We  wished  at  the 
period  of  the  Revolution,  and  do  now  wish,  to  derive  all  we 
possess  as  an  inheritance  from  our  forefathers.  Upon  that 
body  and  stock  of  inheritance  we  have  taken  care  not  to 
inoculate  any  cyon  alien  to  the  nature  of  the  original  plant. 
All  the  reformations  we  have  hitherto  made,  have  proceeded 
upon  the  principle  of  reference  to  antiquity;  and  I  hope,  nay 


ENGLISH  LIBERTIES  AN  INHERITANCE.  37 

I  am  persuaded,  that  all  those  which  possibly  may  be  made 
hereafter,  will  be  carefully  formed  upon  analogical  precedent, 
authority,  and  example. 

Our  oldest  reformation  is  that  of  Magna  Charta.  You  will 
see  that  Sir  Edward  Coke,  that  great  oracle  of  our  law,  and 
indeed  all  the  great  men  who  follow  him,  to  Blackstone*,  are 
industrious  to  prove  the  pedigree  of  our  liberties.  They  i 
endeavour  to  prove,  that  the  antient  charter,  the  Magna 
Charta  of  King  John,  was  connected  with  another  positive 
charter  from  Henry  I.  and  that  both  the  one  and  the  other 
were  nothing  more  than  a  re-affirmance  of  the  still  more 
antient  standing  law  of  the  kingdom.  In  the  matter  of  fact, 
for  the  greater  part,  these  authors  appear  to  be  in  the  right ; 
perhaps  not  always :  but  if  the  lawyers  mistake  in  some  par- 
ticulars, it  proves  my  position  still  the  more  strongly;  because 
it  demonstrates  the  powerful  prepossession  towards  antiquity, 
with  which  the  minds  of  all  our  lawyers  and  legislators,  and 
of  all  the  people  whom  they  wish  to  influence,  have  been 
always  filled  ;  and  the  stationary  policy  of  this  kingdom  in 
considering  their  most  sacred  rights  and  franchises  as  an 
inheritance. 

In  the  famous  law  of  the  3rd  of  Charles  I.  called  the 
Petition  of  Right,  the  parliament  says  to  the  king,  'Your 
subjects  have  inherited  this  freedom,'  claiming  their  franchises, 
not  on  abstract  principles  as  the  '  rights  of  men,'  but  as  the 
rights  of  Englishmen,  and  as  a  patrimony  derived  from  their 
forefathers.  Selden,  and  the  other  profoundly  learned  men, 
who  drew  this  petition  of  right,  were  as  well  acquainted,  at 
least,  with  all  the  general  theories  concerning  the  '  rights  of 
men,'  as  any  of  the  discoursers  in  our  pulpits,  or  on  your 
tribune;  full  as  well  as  Dr.  Price,  or  as  the  Abbd  Sieyes. 
But,  for  reasons  worthy  of  that  practical  wisdom  which  super- 
seded their  theoretic  science,  they  preferred  this  positive, 
*  See  Blackstone's  Magna  Charta,  printed  at  Oxford,  1 759. 


38  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

recorded,  hereditary  title  to  all  which  can  be  dear  to  the  man 
and  the  citizen,  to  that  vague  speculative  right,  which 
exposed  their  sure  inheritance  to  be  scrambled  for  and 
torn  to  pieces  by  every  wild  litigious  spirit. 

The  same  policy  pervades  all  the  laws  which  have  since 
been  made  for  the  preservation  of  our  liberties.  In  the  ist  of 
William  and  Mary,  in  the  famous  statute,  called  the  De- 
claration of  Right,  the  two  houses  utter  not  a  syllable  of 
'a  right  to  frame  a  government  for  themselves.'  You  will  see, 
that  their  whole  care  was  to  secure  the  religion,  laws,  and 
liberties,  that  had  been  long  possessed,  and  had  been  lately 
endangered.  *  Taking*  into  their  most  serious  consideration 
the  best  means  for  making  such  an  establishment,  that  their  re- 
ligion, laws,  and  liberties  might  not  be  in  danger  of  being  again 
subverted,'  they  auspicate  all  their  proceedings,  by  stating  as 
some  of  those  best  means,  '  in  the  first  place '  to  do  '  as  their 
ancestors  in  like  cases  have  usually  done  for  vindicating  their 
antient  rights  and  Hberties,  to  declare ;' — and  then  they  pray 
the  king  and  queen,  '  that  it  may  be  declared  and  enacted, 
that  all  and  singular  the  rights  and  liberties  asserted  and 
declared  are  the  true  antient  and  indubitable  rights  and 
liberties  of  the  people  of  this  kingdom.' 

You  will  observe,  that  from  IMagna  Charta  to  the  Declar- 
ation of  Right,  it  has  been  the  uniform  policy  of  our  consti- 
tution to  claim  and  assert  our  liberties,  as  an  entailed  in- 
heritance derived  to  us  from  our  forefathers,  and  to  be  trans- 
mitted to  our  posterity ;  as  an  estate  specially  belonging  to 
the  people  of  this  kingdom  without  any  reference  whatever  to 
any  other  more  general  or  prior  right.  By  this  means  our 
constitution  preserves  an  unity  in  so  great  a  diversity  of  its 
parts.  We  have  an  inheritable  crown;  an  inheritable  peerage; 
and  an  house  of  commons  and  a  people  inheriting  privileges, 
franchises,  and  liberties,  from  a  long  line  of  ancestors. 
♦  I  W.  and  M. 


ANALOGY  WITH  NATURE.  39 

This  policy  appears  to  me  to  be  the  result  of  profound 
reflection;  or  rather  the  happy  effect  of  following  nature, 
which  is  wisdom  without  reflection,  and  above  it.  A  spirit  of 
innovation  is  generally  the  result  of  a  selfish  temper  and  con- 
fined views.  People  will  not  look  forward  to  posterity,  who 
never  look  backward  to  their  ancestors.  Besides,  the  people 
of  England  well  know,  that  the  idea  of  inheritance  furnishes  a 
sure  principle  of  conservation,  and  a  sure  principle  of  trans- 
mission ;  without  at  all  excluding  a  principle  of  improvement. 
It  leaves  acquisition  free;  but  it  secures  what  it  acquires. 
Whatever  advantages  are  obtained  by  a  state  proceeding 
on  these  maxims,  are  locked  fast  as  in  a  sort  of  family 
settlement ;  grasped  as  in  a  kind  of  mortmain  for  ever.  By 
a  constitutional  policy,  working  after  the  pattern  of  nature, 
we  receive,  we  hold,  we  transmit  our  government  and  our 
privileges,  in  the  same  manner  in  which  we  enjoy  and 
transmit  our  property  and  our  lives.  The  institutions  of 
policy,  the  goods  of  fortune,  the  gifts  of  Providence,  are 
handed  down,  to  us  and  from  us,  in  the  same  course  and 
order.  Our  political  system  is  placed  in  a  just  correspond- 
ence and  symmetry  with  the  order  of  the  world,  and  with 
the  mode  of  existence  decreed  to  a  permanent  body  com- 
posed of  transitory  parts  ;  wherein,  by  the  disposition  of 
a  stupenduous  wisdom,  moulding  together  the  great  mys- 
terious incorporation  of  the  human  race,  the  whole,  at  one 
time,  is  never  old,  or  middle-aged,  or  young,  but  in  a  con- 
dition of  unchangeable  constancy,  moves  on  through  the 
varied  tenour  of  perpetual  decay,  fall,  renovation,  and  pro- 
gression. Thus,  by  preserving  the  method  of  nature  in  the 
conduct  of  the  state,  in  what  we  improve,  we  are  never 
wholly  new ;  in  what  we  retain  we  are  never  wholly  obsolete. 
By  adhering  in  this  manner  and  on  those  principles  to  our 
forefathers,  we  are  guided  not  by  the  superstition  of  anti- 
quarians, but  by  the  spirit  of  philosophic  analogy.    In  this 


40  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

choice  of  inheritance  we  have  given  to  our  frame  of  polity 
the  image  of  a  relation  in  blood ;  binding  up  the  constitution 
of  our  country  with  our  dearest  domestic  ties  ;  adopting  our 
fundamental  laws  into  the  bosom  of  our  family  affections ; 
keeping  inseparable,  and  cherishing  with  the  warmth  of  all 
their  combined  and  mutually  reflected  charities,  our  state,  our 
hearths,  our  sepulchres,  and  our  altars. 

Through  the  same  plan  of  a  conformity  to  nature  in  our 
artificial  institutions,  and  by  calling  in  the  aid  of  her  unerring 
and  powerful  instincts,  to  fortify  the  fallible  and  feeble  con- 
trivances of  our  reason,  we  have  derived  several  other,  and 
those  no  small  benefits,  from  considering  our  Hberties  in 
the  light  of  an  inheritance.  Always  acting  as  if  in  the 
presence  of  canonized  forefathers,  the  spirit  of  freedom, 
leading  in  itself  to  misrule  and  excess,  is  tepipered  with  an 
awful  gravity.  This  idea  of  a  liberal  descent  inspires  us  with 
a  sense  of  habitual  native  dignity,  which  prevents  that 
upstart  insolence  almost  inevitably  adhering  to  and  dis- 
gracing those  who  are  the  first  acquirers  of  any  distinction. 
By  this  means  our  liberty  becomes  a  noble  freedom.  It 
carries  an  imposing  and  majestic  aspect.  It  has  a  pedigree 
and  illustrating  ancestors.  It  has  its  bearings  and  its  ensigns 
armorial.  It  has  its  gallery  of  portraits ;  its  monumental 
inscriptions;  its  records,  evidences,  and  titles.  We  procure 
,  reverence  to  our  civil  institutions  on  the  principle  upon  which 
nature  teaches  us  to  revere  individual  men;  on  account  of 
their  age;  and  on  account  of  those  from  whom  they  are 
descended.  All  your  sophisters  cannot  produce  any  thing 
better  adapted  to  preserve  a  rational  and  manly  freedom 
than  the  course  that  we  have  pursued,  who  have  chosen 
our  nature  rather  than  our  speculations,  our  breasts  rather 
than  our  inventions,  for  the  great  conservatories  and  maga- 
zines of  our  rights  and  privileges. 


USE   OF   CONFLICTING   INTERESTS.  4I 

You  might,  if  you  pleased,  have  profited  of  our  example, 
and  have  given  to  your  recovered  freedom  a  correspondent 
dignity.  Your  privileges,  though  discontinued,  were  not  lost 
to  memory.  Your  constitution,  it  is  true,  whilst  you  were 
out  of  possession,  suffered  waste  and  dilapidation ;  but  you 
possessed  in  some  parts  the  walls,  and  in  all  the  foundations, 
of  a  noble  and  venerable  casde.  You  might  have  repaired 
those  walls ;  you  might  have  built  on  those  old  foundations. 
Your  constitution  was  suspended  before  it  was  perfected; 
but  you  had  the  elements  of  a  constitution  very  nearly  as 
good  as  could  be  wished.  In  your  old  states  you  possessed 
that  variety  of  parts  corresponding  with  the  various  de- 
scriptions of  which  your  community  was  happily  composed ; 
you  had  all  that  combination,  and  all  that  opposition  of 
interests,  you  had  that  action  and  counteraction  which,  in  the 
natural  and  in  the  political  world,  from  the  reciprocal 
struggle  of  discordant  powers,  draws  out  the  harmony  of  the 
universe.  These  opposed  and  conflicting  interests,  which 
you  considered  as  so  great  a  blemish  in  your  old  and  in  our 
present  constitution,  interpose  a  salutary  check  to  all  pre- 
cipitate resolutions ;  they  render  deliberation  a  matter  not 
of  choice,  but  of  necessity;  they  make  all  change  a  subject  of 
compromise,  which  naturally  begets  moderation ;  they  produce 
temperaments,  preventing  the  sore  evil  of  harsh,  crude,  un- 
qualified reformations ;  and  rendering  all  the  headlong  exer- 
tions of  arbitrary  power,  in  the  few  or  in  the  many,  for 
ever  impracticable.  Through  that  diversity  of  members  and 
interests,  general  liberty  .had  as  many  securities  as  there  were 
separate  views  in  the  several  orders ;  whilst  by  pressing  down 
the  whole  by  the  weight  of  a  real  monarchy,  the  separate 
parts  would  have  been  prevented  from  warping  and  starting 
from  their  allotted  places. 

You  had  all  these  advantages  in  your  antient  states ;  but 
you  chose  to  act  as  if  you  had  never  been  moulded  into  civil 


42  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

society,  and  had  everything  to  begin  anew.  You  began  ill, 
because  you  began  by  despising  everything  that  belonged  to 
you.  You  set  up  your  trade  without  a  capital.  If  the  last 
generations  of  your  country  appeared  without  much  lustre  in 
your  eyes,  you  might  have  passed  them  by,  and  derived 
your  claims  from  a  more  early  race  of  ancestors.  Under  a 
pious  predilection  for  those  ancestors,  your  imaginations 
would  have  realized  in  them  a  standard  of  virtue  and 
wisdom,  beyond  the  vulgar  practice  of  the  hour:  and  you 
would  have  risen  with  the  example  to  whose  imitation  you 
aspired. /Respecting  your  forefathers,  you  would  have  been 
taught  to  respect  yourselves.  You  would  not  have  chosen 
to  consider  the  French  as  a  people  of  yesterday,  as  a  nation 
of  low-born  servile  wretches  until  the  emancipating  year  of 
1789,  In  order  to  furnish,  at  the  expence  of  your  honour, 
an  excuse  to  your  apologists  here  for  several  enormities  of 
yours,  you  would  not  have  been  content  to  be  represented  as 
a  gang  of  Maroon  slaves,  suddenly  broke  loose  from  the 
house  of  bondage,  and  therefore  to  be  pardoned  for  your 
abuse  of  the  liberty  to  which  you  were  not  accustomed  and 
ill  fitted.  Would  it  not,  my  worthy  friend,  have  been  wiser 
to  have  you  thought,  what  I,  for  one,  always  thought  you,  a 
generous  and  gallant  nation,  long  misled  to  your  disadvan- 
tage by  your  high  and  romantic  sentiments  of  fidelity, 
honour,  and  loyalty;  that  events  had  been  unfavourable  to 
you,  but  that  you  were  not  enslaved  through  any  illiberal 
or  servile  disposition ;  that  in  your  most  devoted  submission, 
you  were  actuated  by  a  principle  of  .public  spirit,  and  that  it 
was  your  country  you  worshipped,  in  the  person  of  your  king  ? 
Had  you  made  it  to  be  understood,  that  in  the  delusion  of 
this  amiable  error  you  had  gone  further  than  your  wise  an- 
cestors ;  that  you  were  resolved  to  resume  your  ancient  privi- 
leges, whilst  you  preserved  the  spirit  of  your  ancient  and  your 
recent  loyalty  and  honour ;  or,  if  diffident  of  yourselves,  and 


WHAT  FRANCE  MIGHT  HAVE  DONE.  43 

.  not  clearly  discerning  the  almost  obliterated  constitution  of 
your  ancestors,  you  had  looked  to  your  neighbours  in  this 
land,  who  had  kept  alive  the  ancient  principles  and  models 
of  the  old  common  law  of  Europe  meliorated  and  adapted  to 
its  present  state — by  following  wise  examples  you  would 
have  given  new  examples  of  wisdom  to  the  world.  You 
would  have  rendered  the  cause  of  liberty  venerable  in  the 
eyes  of  every  worthy  mind  in  every  nation.  You  would 
have  shamed  despotism  from  the  earth,  by  showing  that 
freedom  was  not  only  reconcileable,  but  as,  when  well  disci- 
plined it  is,  auxiliary  to  law.  You  would  have  had  an 
unoppressive  but  a  productive  revenue.  You  would  have 
had  a  flourishing  commerce  to  feed  it.  You  would  have 
had  a  free  constitution ;  a  potent  monarchy ;  a  disciplined 
army;  a  reformed  and  venerated  clergy;  a  mitigated  but 
spirited  nobility,  to  lead  your  virtue,  not  to  overlay  it ;  you 
would  have  had  a  liberal  order  of  commons,  to  emulate 
and  to  recruit  that  nobility ;  you  would  have  had  a  pro- 
tected, satisfied,  laborious,  and  obedient  people,  taught  to 
seek  and  to  recognize  the  happiness  that  is  to  be  found  by 
virtue  in  all  conditions;  in  which  consists  the  true  moral 
equality  of  mankind,  and  not  in  that  monstrous  fiction, 
which,  by  inspiring  false  ideas  and  vain  expectations  into 
men  destined  to  travel  in  the  obscure  walk  of  laborious  fife, 
serves  only  to  aggravate  and  imbitter  that  real  inequality, 
which  it  never  can  remove  ;  and  which  the  order  of  civil  life 
establishes  as  much  for  the  benefit  of  those  whom  it  must 
leave  in  an  humble  state,  as  those  whom  it  is  able  to  exalt  to 
a  condition  more  splendid,  but  not  more  happy.  You  had 
a  smooth  and  easy  career  of  felicity  and  glory  laid  open  to 
you,  beyond  anything  recorded  in  the  history  of  the  world ; 
but  you  have  shewn  that  difficulty  is  good  for  man. 

.Compute  your  gains :   see  what  is  got  by  those  extrava- 
gant and  presumptuous  speculations  which  have  taught  your 


44  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

leaders  to  despise  all  their  predecessors,  and  all  their  contem- 
poraries, and  even  to  despise  themselves,  until  the  moment 
in  which  they  became  truly  despicable.  By  following  those 
false  lights,  France  has  bought  undisguised  calamities  at  a 
higher  price  than  any  nation  has  purchased  the  most  unequi- 
vocal blessings.  France  has  bought  poverty  by  crime! 
France  has  not  sacrificed  her  virtue  to  her  interest;  but  she  has 
abandoned  her  interest,  that  she  might  prostitute  her  virtue. 
All  other  nations  have  begun  the  fabric  of  a  nev/  government, 
or  the  reformation  of  an  old,  by  establishing  originally,  or  by 
enforcing  with  greater  exactness,  some  rites  or  other  of  re- 
ligion. All  other  people  have  laid  the  foundations  of  civil 
freedom  in  severer  manners,  and  a  system  of  a  more  austere 
and  masculine  morality.  France,  when  she  let  loose  the 
reins  of  regal  authority,  doubled  the  licence,  of  a  ferocious 
dissoluteness  in  manners,  and  of  an  insolent  irreligion  in 
opinions  and  practices ;  and  has  extended  through  all  ranks 
of  Ufe,  as  if  she  were  communicating  some  privilege,  or 
laying  open  some  secluded  benefit,  all  the  unhappy  corrup- 
tions that  usually  were  the  disease  of  wealth  and  power. 
This  is  one  of  the  new  principles  of  equality  in  France. 

France,  by  the  perfidy  of  her  leaders,  has  utterly  disgraced 
the  tone  of  lenient  council  in  the  cabinets  of  princes,  and 
disarmed  it  of  its  most  potent  topics.  She  has  sanctified 
the  dark  suspicious  maxims  of  tyrannous  distrust;  and 
taught  kings  to  tremble  at  (what  will  hereafter  be  called)  the 
delusive  plausibilities  of  moral  politicians.  Sovereigns  will 
consider  those  who  advise  them  to  place  an  unlimited  con- 
fidence in  their  people,  as  subverters  of  their  thrones  ;  as 
traitors  who  aim  at  their  destruction,  by  leading  their  easy 
good-nature,  under  specious  pretences,  to  admit  combina- 
tions of  bold  and  faithless  men  into  a  participation  of  their 
power.  This  alone,  if  there  were  nothing  else,  is  an  irre- 
parable calamity  to  you  and  to  mankind.     Remember  that 


WHAT  FRANCE   HAS   DONE.  45 

your  parliament  of  Paris  told  your  king,  that  in  calling  the 
states  together,  he  had  nothing  to  fear  but  the  prodigal  excess 
of  their  zeal  in  providing  for  the  support  of  the  throne.  It  is 
right  that  these  men  should  hide  their  heads.  It  is  right  that 
they  should  bear  their  part  in  the  ruin  which  their  counsel  has 
brought  on  their  sovereign  and  their  country.  Such  sanguine 
declarations  tend  to  lull  authority  asleep ;  to  encourage  it 
rashly  to  engage  in  perilous  adventures  of  untried  policy;  to 
neglect  those  provisions,  preparations,  and  precautions,  which 
distinguish  benevolence  from  imbecillity ;  and  without  which 
no  man  can  answer  for  the  salutary  effect  of  any  abstract  plan 
of  government  or  of  freedom.  For  want  of  these,  they  have 
seen  the  medicine  of  the  state  corrupted  into  its  poison. 
They  have  seen  the  French  rebel  against  a  mild  and  lawful 
monarch,  with  more  fury,  outrage,  and  insult,  than  ever  any 
people  has  been  known  to  rise  against  the  most  illegal 
usurper,  or  the  most  sanguinary  tyrant.  Their  resistance 
was  made  to  concession ;  their  revolt  was  from  protection ; 
their  blow  was  aimed  at  an  hand  holding  out  graces,  favours, 
and  immunities. 
'  This  was  unnatural.  The  rest  is  in  order.  They  have 
>  found  their  punishment  in  their  success.  Laws  overturned  : 
'  tribunals  subverted ;  industry  without  vigour ;  commerce  exi 
piring;  the  revenue  unpaid,  yet  the  people  impoverished  i"; 
a  church  pillaged,  and  a  state  not  relieved ;  civil  and  militaiy 
anarchy  made  the  constitution  of  the  kingdom ;  every  thiWg 
human  and  divine  sacrificed  to  the  idol  of  public  credit,  and 
national  bankruptcy  the  consequence ;  and  to  crown  all, 
the  paper  securities  of  new,  precarious,  tottering  power,  the 
discredited  paper  securities  of  impoverished  fraud,  and 
beggared  rapine,  held  out  as  a  currency  for  the  support  of 
an  empire,  in  lieu  of  the  two  great  recognised  species  that 
represent  the  lasting  conventional  credit  of  mankind,  which 
disappeared  and  hid  themselves  in  the  earth  from  whence 


45  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

they  came,  when  the  principle  of  property,  whose  crea- 
tures and  representatives  they  are,  was  systematically 
subverted. 

Were  all  these  dreadful  things  necessary  ?  Were  they  the 
inevitable  results  of  the  desperate  struggle  of  determined 
patriots,  compelled  to  wade  through  blood  and  tumult,  to 
the  quiet  shore  of  a  tranquil  and  prosperous  liberty  ?  No  ! 
nothing  like  it.  The  fresh  ruins  of  France,  which  shock  our 
feelings  wherever  we  can  turn  our  eyes,  are  not  the  devasta- 
tion of  civil  war ;  they  are  the  sad  but  instructive  monuments 
of  rash  and  ignorant  counsel  in  time  of  profound  peace. 
They  are  the  display  of  inconsiderate  and  presumptuous, 
because  unresisted  and  irresistible  authority.  The  persons 
who  have  thus  squandered  away  the  precious  treasure  of 
their  crimes,  the  persons  who  have  made  this  prodigal  and 
wild  waste  of  public  evils  (the  last  stake  reserved  for  the 
uUimate  ransom  of  the  state)  have  met  in  their  progress  with 
little,  or  rather  with  no  opposition  at  all.  Their  whole 
march  was  more  like  a  triumphal  procession  than  the  pro- 
gress of  a  war.  Their  pioneers  have  gone  before  them,  and 
demolished  and  laid  every  thing  level  at  their  feet.  Not  one 
drop  of  iheir  blood  have  they  shed  in  the  cause  of  the 
country  they  have  ruined.  They  have  made  no  sacrifices  to 
their  projects  of  greater  consequence  than  their  shoebuckles, 
whilst  they  were  imprisoning  their  king,  murdering  their 
fellow  citizens,  and  bathing  in  tears,  and  plunging  in  poverty 
and  distress,  thousands  of  worthy  men  and  worthy  families. 
Their  cruelty  has  not  even  been  the  base  result  of  fear.  It 
has  been  the  effect  of  their  sense  of  perfect  safety,  in 
authorizing  treasons,  robberies,  rapes,  assassinations, 
slaughters,  and  burnings  throughout  their  harrassed  land. 
But  the  cause  of  all  was  plain  from  the  beginning. 

This  unforced  choice,  this  fond  election  of  evil,  would 


THE  NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY.  47 

appear  perfectly  unaccountable,  if  we  did  not  consider  the 
composition  of  the  National  Assembly ;  I  do  not  mean  its 
formal  constitution,  which,  as  it  now  stands,  is  exceptionable 
enough,  but  the  materials  of  which  in  a  great  measure  it  is 
composed,  which  is  of  ten  thousand  times  greater  conse- 
quence than  all  the  formalities  in  the  world.  If  we  were  to 
know  nothing  of  this  Assembly  but  by  its  title  and  function, 
no  colours  could  paint  to  the  imagination  any  thing  more 
venerable.  In  that  light  the  mind  of  an  enquirer,  subdued 
by  such  an  awful  image  as  that  of  the  virtue  and  wisdom  of 
a  whole  people  collected  into  a  focus,  would  pause  and 
hesitate  in  condemning  things  even  of  the  very  worst  aspect. 
Instead  of  blameable,  they  would  appear  only  mysterious. 
But  no  name,  no  power,  no  function,  no  artificial  institution 
whatsoever,  can  make  the  men  of  whom  any  system  of 
authority  is  composed,  any  other  than  God,  and  nature,  and 
education,  and  their  habits  of  life  have  made  them.  Capaci- 
ties beyond  these  the  people  have  not  to  give.  Virtue  and 
wisdom  may  be  the  objects  of  their  choice ;  but  their  choice 
confers  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  on  those  upon  whom 
they  lay  their  ordaining  hands.  They  have  not  the  engage- 
ment of  nature,  they  have  not  the  promise  of  revelation  for 
any  such  powers. 

After  I  had  read  over  the  list  of  the  persons  and  de- 
scriptions elected  into  the  Tiers  Etat,  nothing  which  they  ; 
afterwards  did  could  appear  astonishing.  Among  them, 
indeed,  I  saw  some  of  known  rank  ;  some  of  shining  talents  ; 
but  of  any  practical  experience  in  the  state,  not  one  man 
was  to  be  found.  The  best  were  only  men  of  theory.  But 
whatever  the  distinguished  few  may  have  been,  it  is  the  sub- 
stance and  mass  of  the  body  which  constitutes  its  character, 
and  must  finally  determine  its  direction.  In  all  bodies,  those 
who  will  lead,  must  also,  in  a  considerable  degree,  follow. 


48  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

They  must  conform  their  propositions  to  the  taste,  talent, 
and  disposition  of  those  whom  they  wish  to  conduct :  there- 
fore, if  an  Assembly  is  viciously  or  feebly  composed  in  a 
very  great  part  of  it,  nothing  but  such  a  supreme  degree  of 
virtue  as  very  rarely  appears  in  the  world,  and  for  that 
reason  cannot  enter  into  calculation,  will  prevent  the  men  of 
talents  disseminated  through  it  from  becoming  only  the 
expert  instruments  of  absurd  projects.  If,  what  is  the  more 
likely  event,  instead  of  that  unusual  degree  of  virtue,  they 
should  be  actuated  by  sinister  ambition  and  a  lust  of  mere- 
tricious glory,  then  the  feeble  part  of  the  Assembly,  to  whom 
at  first  they  conform,  becomes  in  its  turn  the  dupe  and 
instrument  of  their  designs.  In  this  political  traffick  the 
leaders  will  be  obliged  to  bow  to  the  ignorance  of  their 
followers,  and  the  followers  to  become  subservient  to  the 
worst  designs  of  their  leaders. 

To  secure  any  degree  of  sobriety  in  the  propositions  made 
by  the  leaders  in  any  public  assembly,  they  ought  to  respect, 
in  some  degree  perhaps  to  fear,  those  whom  they  conduct. 
To  be  led  any  otherwise  than  blindly,  the  followers  must  be 
qualified,  if  not  for  actors,  at  least  for  judges ;  they  must  also 
be  judges  of  natural  weight  and  authority.  Nothing  can 
secure  a  steady  and  moderate  conduct  in  such  assemblies, 
but  that  the  body  of  them  should  be  respectably  composed, 
in  point  of  condition  in  life,  of  permanent  property,  of 
education,  and  of  such  habits  as  enlarge  and  liberalize  the 
understanding. 

In  the  calling  of  the  states  general  of  France,  the  first 
thing  which  struck  me,  was  a  great  departure  from  the 
antient  course.  I  found  the  representation  for  the  Third 
Estate  composed  of  six  hundred  persons.  They  were  equal 
in  number  to  the  representatives  of  both  of  the  other  orders. 
If  the  orders  were  to  act  separately,  the  number  would  not, 
beyond  the   consideration   of  the   expence,   be    of   much 


LAWYERS  IN  THE  ASSEMBLY.  49 

moment.  But  when  it  became  apparent  that  the  three 
orders  were  to  be  melted  down  into  one,  the  policy  and 
necessary  effect  of  this  numerous  representation  became 
obvious.  A  very  small  desertion  from  either  of  the  other 
two  orders  must  throw  the  power  of  both  into  the  hands  of 
the  third.  In  fact,  the  whole  power  of  the  state  was  soon 
resolved  into  that  body.  Its  due  composition  became  there- 
fore of  infinitely  the  greater  importance. 

Judge,  Sir,  of  my  surprize,  when  I  found  that  a  very  great 
proportion  of  the  Assembly  (a  majority,  I  believe,  of  the 
members  who  attended)  was  composed  of  practitioners  in  the 
law.  It  was  composed  not  of  distinguished  magistrates,  who 
had  given  pledges  to  their  country  of  their  science,  prudence, 
and  integrity;  not  of  leading  advocates,  the  glory  of  the  bar; 
not  of  renowned  professors  in  universities ; — but  for  the  far 
greater  part,  as  it  must  in  such  a  number,  of  the  inferior, 
unlearned,  mechanical,  merely  instrumental  members  of  the 
profession.  There  were  distinguished  exceptions ;  but  the  \ 
general  composition  was  of  obscure  provincial  advocates,  of  ( 
stewards  of  petty  local  jurisdictions,  country  attornies,  nota-  j 
ries,  and  the  whole  train  of  the  ministers  of  municipal  litiga- 
tion, the  fomenters  and  conductors  of  the  petty  war  of  village 
vexation.  From  the  moment  I  read  the  list  I  saw  distinctly, 
and  very  nearly  as  it  has  happened,  all  that  was  to  follow. 

The  degree  of  estimation  in  which  any  profession  is  held 
becomes  the  standard  of  the  estimation  in  which  the  profes- 
sors hold  themselves.  Whatever  the  personal  merits  of 
many  individual  lawyers  might  have  been,  and  in  many  it  was 
undoubtedly  very  considerable,  in  that  military  kingdom,  no 
part  of  the  profession  had  been  much  regarded,  except  the 
highest  of  all,  who  often  united  to  their  professional  offices 
great  family  splendour,  and  were  invested  with  great  power 
and  authority.  These  certainly  were  highly  respected,  and 
even  with  no  small  degree  of  awe.     The  next  rank  was  not 

VOL.    II.  £ 


50  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

much  esteemed ;    the  mechanical  part  was  in  a  very  low 
degree  of  repute. 

Whenever  the  supreme  authority  is  invested  in  a  body  so 
composed,  it  must  evidently  produce  the  consequences  of 
supreme  authority  placed  in  the  hands  of  men  not  taught 
habitually  to  respect  themselves;  who  had  no  previous 
fortune  in  character  at  stake ;  who  could  not  be  expected  to 
bear  with  moderation,  or  to  conduct  with  discretion,  a  power 
which  they  themselves,  more  than  any  others,  must  be  sur- 
prized to  find  in  their  hands.  Who  could  flatter  himself  that 
these  men,  suddenly,  and,  as  it  were,  by  enchantment, 
snatched  from  the  humblest  rank  of  subordination,  would 
not  be  intoxicated  with  their  unprepared  greatness  ?  W^ho 
could  conceive,  that  men  who  are  habitually  meddling, 
daring,  subtle,  active,  of  litigious  dispositions  and  unquiet 
minds,  would  easily  fall  back  into  their  old  condition  of 
obscure  contention,  and  laborious,  low,  unprofitable  chicane  ? 
Who  could  doubt  but  that,  at  any  expence  to  the  state,  of 
which  they  understood  nothing,  they  must  pursue  their 
private  interests,  which  they  understood  but  too  well?  It 
was  not  an  event  depending  on  chance  or  contingency. 
It  was  inevitable ;  it  was  necessary ;  it  was  planted  in  the 
nature  of  things.  They  must  join  (if  their  capacity  did  not 
permit  them  to  lead)  in  any  project  which  could  procure  to 
them  a  litigious  constitution ;  which  could  lay  open  to  them 
those  innumerable  lucrative  jobs  which  follow  in  the  train  of 
all  great  convulsions  and  revolutions  in  the  state,  and  par- 
ticularly in  all  great  and  violent  permutations  of  property. 
Was  it  to  be  expected  that  they  would  attend  to  the  stability 
of  property,  whose  existence  had  always  depended  upon 
whatever  rendered  property  questionable,  ambiguous,  and 
insecure  ?  Their  objects  would  be  enlarged  with  their  eleva- 
tion, but  their  disposition  and  habits,  and  mode  of  accom- 
plishing their  designs,  must  remain  the  same. 


REST  OF   THE    TIERS  £TAT.  5 1 

Well !  but  these  men  were  to  be  tempered  and  restrained 
by  other  descriptions,  of  more  sober  minds,  and  more  en- 
larged understandings.  Were  they  then  to  be  awed  by  the 
super-eminent  authority  and  awful  dignity  of  an  handful  of 
country  clowns  who  have  seats  in  that  Assembly,  some  of 
whom  are  said  not  to  be  able  to  read  and  write  ?  and  by  not 
a  greater  number  of  traders,  who,  though  somewhat  more 
instructed,  and  more  conspicuous  in  the  order  of  society, 
had  never  known  any  thing  beyond  their  counting-house  ? 
No !  both  these  descriptions  were  more  formed  to  be  over- 
borne and  swayed  by  the  intrigues  and  artifices  of  lawyers, 
than  to  become  their  counterpoise.  With  such  a  dangerous 
disproportion,  the  whole  must  needs  be  governed  by  them. 
To  the  faculty  of  law  was  joined  a  pretty  considerable  pro- 
portion of  the  faculty  of  medicine.  This  faculty  had  not, 
any  more  than  that  of  the  law,  possessed  in  France  its  just 
estimation.  Its  professors  therefore  must  have  the  qualities 
of  men  not  habituated  to  sentiments  of  dignity.  But  sup- 
posing they  had  ranked  as  they  ought  to  do,  and  as  with  us  they 
do  actually,  the  sides  of  sick  beds  are  not  the  academies  for 
forming  statesmen  and  legislators.  Then  came  the  dealers 
in  stocks  and  funds,  who  must  be  eager,  at  any  expence,  to 
change  their  ideal  paper  wealth  for  the  more  solid  substance 
of  land.  To  these  were  joined  men  of  other  descriptions, 
from  whom  as  little  knowledge  of  or  attention  to  the 
interests  of  a  great  state  was  to  be  expected,  and  as  little 
regard  to  the  stability  of  any  institution ;  men  formed  to  be 
instruments,  not  controls.  Such  in  general  was  the  compo- 
sition of  the  Tiers  Etat  in  the  National  Assembly ;  in  which 
was  scarcely  to  be  perceived  the  slightest  traces  of  what  we 
call  the  natural  landed  interest  of  the  country.  , 

We  know  that  the  British  house  of  commons,  without 
shutting  its  doors  to  any  merit  in  any  class,  is,  by  the  sure 
operation  of  adequate  causes,  filled  with  every  thing  illustrious 

E    2 


52  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

in  rank,  in  descent,  in  hereditary  and  in  acquired  opulence, 
in  cultivated  talents,  in  military,  civil,  naval,  and  politic  dis- 
tinction, that  the  country  can  afford.  But  supposing,  what 
hardly  can  be  supposed  as  a  case,  that  the  house  of  com- 
mons should  be  composed  in  the  same  manner  with  the 
Tiers  Etat  in  France,  would  this  dominion  of  chicane  be 
borne  with  patience,  or  even  conceived  without  horror  ? 
God  forbid  I  should  insinuate  any  thing  derogatory  to  that 
profession,  which  is  another  priesthood,  administering  the 
rites  of  sacred  justice.  But  whilst  I  revere  men  in  the 
functions  which  belong  to  them,  and  would  do  as  much  as 
one  man  can  do,  to  prevent  their  exclusion  from  any,  I 
cannot,  to  flatter  them,  give  the  lye  to  nature.  They  are 
good  and  useful  in  the  composition;  they  must  be  mis- 
chievous if  they  preponderate  so  as  virtually  to  become  the 
whole.  Their  very  excellence  in  their  peculiar  functions 
may  be  far  from  a  qualification  for  others.  It  cannot  escape 
observation,  that  when  men  are  too  much  confined  to  pro- 
fessional and  faculty  habits,  and,  as  it  were,  inveterate  in  the 
recurrent  employment  of  that  narrow  circle,  they  are  rather 
disabled  than  qualified  for  whatever  depends  on  the  know- 
ledge of  mankind,  on  experience  in  mixed  affairs,  on  a 
comprehensive  connected  view  of  the  various  complicated 
external  and  internal  interests  which  go  to  the  formation  of 
that  multifarious  thing  called  a  state. 

After  all,  if  the  house  of  commons  were  to  have  an  wholly 
professional  and  faculty  composition,  what  is  the  power  of 
the  house  of  commons,  circumscribed  and  shut  in  by  the 
immoveable  barriers  of  laws,  usages,  positive  rules  of  doc- 
trine and  practice,  counterpoized  by  the  house  of  lords,  and 
every  moment  of  its  existence  at  the  discretion  of  the  crown 
to  continue,  prorogue,  or  dissolve  us  ?  The  power  of  the  house 
of  commons,  direct  or  indirect,  is  indeed  great;  and  long 
may  it  be  able  to  preserve  its  greatness,  and  the  spirit  be- 


REPRESENTATIVES  OF   THE   CLERGY.  ^;^ 

longing  to  true  greatness,  at  the  full ;  and  it  will  do  so,  as 
long  as  it  can  keep  the  breakers  of  law  in  India  from  be- 
coming the  makers  of  law  for  England.  The  power,  how- 
ever, of  the  house  of  commons,  when  least  diminished,  is  as 
a  drop  of  water  in  the  ocean,  compared  to  that  residing  in  a 
settled  majority  of  your  National  Assembly.  That  Assembly, 
since  the  destruction  of  the  orders,  has  no  fundamental  law, 
no  strict  convention,  no  respected  usage  to  restrain  it.  In- 
stead of  finding  themselves  obliged  to  conform  to  a  fixed 
constitution,  they  have  a  power  to  make  a  constitution 
which  shall  conform  to  their  designs.  Nothing  in  hea,ven 
or  upon  earth  can  serve  as  a  control  on  them.  What 
ought  to  be  the  heads,  the  hearts,  the  dispositions,  that 
are  qualified,  or  that  dare,  not  only  to  make  laws  under  a 
fixed  constitution,  but  at  one  heat  to  strike  out  a  totally  new 
constitution  for  a  great  kingdom,  and  in  every  part  of  it, 
from  the  monarch  on  the  throne  to  the  vestry  of  a  parish  ? 
But — ''Fools  rush  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread!  In  such  a 
state  of  unbounded  power,  for  undefined  and  undefinable 
purposes,  the  evil  of  a  moral  and  almost  physical  inaptitude 
of  the  man  to  the  function  must  be  the  greatest  we  can 
conceive  to  happen  in  the  management  of  human  aff"airs. 

■^Having  considered  the  composition  of  the  third  estate  as 
it  stood  in  its  original  frame,  I  took  a  view  of  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  clergy.  There  too  it  appeared,  that  full  as 
little  regard  was  had  to  the  general  security  of  property,  or 
to  the  aptitude  of  the  deputies  for  their  public  purposes,  in 
the  principles  of  their  election.  That  election  was  so  con- 
trived as  to  send  a  very  large  proportion  of  mere  country  , . 
curates  to  the  great  and  arduous  work  of  new-modelling  a 
state ;  men  who  never  had  seen  the  state  so  much  as  in  a 
picture  ;  men  who  knew  nothing  of  the  world  beyond  the 
bounds  of  an  obscure  village;  who,  immersed  in  hopeless 


54  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

poverty,  could  regard  all  property,  whether  secular  or  eccle- 
siastical, with  no  other  eye  than  that  of  envy ;  among  whom 
must  be  many,  who,  for  the  smallest  hope  of  the  meanest 
dividend  in  plunder,  would  readily  join  in  any  attempts  upon 
a  body  of  wealth,  in  which  they  could  hardly  look  to  have 
any  share,  except  in  a  general  scramble.  Instead  of  balanc- 
ing the  power  of  the  active  chicaners  in  the  other  assembly, 
these  curates  must  necessarily  become  the  active  coadjutors, 
or  at  best  the  passive  instruments  of  those  by  whom  they 
had  been  habitually  guided  in  their  petty  village  concerns. 
They  too  could  hardly  be  the  most  conscientious  of  their 
kind,  who,  presuming  upon  their  incompetent  understanding, 
could  intrigue  for  a  trust  which  led  them  from  their  natural 
relation  to  their  flocks,  and  their  natural  spheres  of  action, 
to  undertake  the  regeneration  of  kingdoms.  This  prepon- 
derating weight  being  added  to  the  force  of  the  body  of 
chicane  in  the  Tiers  Etat,  compleated  that  momentum  of 
ignorance,  rashness,  presumption,  and  lust  of  plunder,  which 
nothing  has  been  able  to  resist. 

To  observing  men  it  must  have  appeared  from  the  begin- 
ning, that  the  majority  of  the  Third  Estate,  in  conjunction 
with  such  a  deputation  from  the  clergy  as  I  have  described, 
whilst  it  pursued  the  destruction  of  the  nobility,  would  in~ 
evitably  become  subservient  to  the  worst  designs  of  indi- 
viduals in  that  class.  In  the  spoil  and  humiliation  of  their 
own  order  these  individuals  would  possess  a  sure  fund  for  the 
pay  of  their  new  followers.  To  squander  away  the  objects 
which  made  the  happiness  of  their  fellows,  would  be  to  them 
no  sacrifice  at  all.  Turbulent,  discontented  men  of  quality, 
in  proportion  as  they  are  puffed  up  with  personal  pride  and 
arrogance,  generally  despise  their  own  order.  One  of  the 
first  symptoms  they  discover  of  a  selfish  and  mischievous 
ambition,  is  a  profligate  disregard  of  a  dignity  which  they 


TURBULENT  NOBILITY.  55 

partake  with  others.  To  be  attached  to  the  subdivision,  to 
love  the  Httle  platoon  we  belong  to  in  society,  is  the  first 
principle  (the  germ  as  it  were)  of  public  affections.  It  is 
the  first  link  in  the  series  by  which  we  proceed  towards  a 
love  to  our  country  and  to  mankind.  The  interests  of  that 
portion  of  social  arrangement  is  a  trust  in  the  hands  of  all 
those  who  compose  it;  and  as  none  but  bad  men  would 
justify  it  in  abuse,  none  but  traitors  would  barter  it  away  for 
their  own  personal  advantage. 

There  were,  in  the  time  of  our  civil  troubles  in  England  (I 
do  not  know  whether  you  have  any  such  in  your  Assembly 
in  France)  several  persons,  like  the  then  Earl  of  Holland, 
who  by  themselves  or  their  families  had  brought  an  odium 
on  the  throne,  by  the  prodigal  dispensation  of  its  bounties 
towards    them,   who    afterwards   joined    in    the   rebellions 
arising  from  the  discontents  of  which  they  were  themselves 
the  cause ;  men  who  helped  to  subvert  that  throne  to  which 
they  owed,  some  of  them,  their  existence,  others  all  that 
power  which  they  employed  to  ruin  their  benefactor.     If  any 
bounds  are  set  to  the  rapacious  demands  of  that  sort  of; 
people,  or  that  others  are  permitted  to  partake  in  the  objects! 
they  would   engross,  revenge  and   envy  soon   fill   up   thef 
craving  void  that  is  left  in  their  avarice.     Confounded  byj 
the  complication  of  distempered  passions,  their  reason 
disturbed ;    their   views    become   vast   and   perplexed ;    t 
others  inexplicable ;    to  themselves  uncertain.     They  find 
on  all  sides,  bounds  to  their  unprincipled  ambition  in  an 
fixed  order  of  things.     But  in  the  fog  and  haze  of  confusio 
all  is  enlarged,  and  appears  without  any  limit. 

When  men  of  rank  sacrifice  all  ideas  of  dignity  to  an 
ambition  without  a  distinct  object,  and  work  with  low  instru- 
ments and  for  low  ends,  the  whole  composition  becomes 
low  and  base.  Does  not  something  like  this  now  appear 
in  France?    Does  it  not  produce   something  ignoble   and 


I 


REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

inglorious  ?  a  kind  of  meanness  in  all  the  prevalent  policy  ? 
a  tendency  in  all  that  is  done  to  lower  along  with  individuals 
all  the  dignity  and  importance  of  the  state  ?  Other  revolu- 
tions have  been  conducted  by  persons,  who  whilst  they  at- 
tempted or  effected  changes  in  the  commonwealth,  sanctified 
their  ambition  by  advancing  the  dignity  of  the  people  whose 
peace  they  troubled.  They  had  long  views.  They  aimed 
at  the  rule,  not  at  the  destruction  of  their  country.  They 
were  men  of  great  civil,  and  great  military  talents,  and  if 
the  terror,  the  ornament  of  their  age.  They  were  not  like 
Jew  brokers  contending  with  each  other  who  could  best 
remedy  with  fraudulent  circulation  and  depreciated  paper 
the  wretchedness  and  ruin  brought  on  their  country  by  their 
degenerate  counsels.  The  compliment  made  to  one  of  the 
great  bad  men  of  the  old  stamp  (Cromwell)  by  his  kinsman, 
a  favourite  poet  of  that  time,  shews  what  it  was  he  pro- 
posed, and  what  indeed  to  a  great  degree  he  accomplished 
in  the  success  of  his  ambition  : 

'  Still  as  you  rise,  the  state,  exalted  too. 
Finds  no  distemper  whilst  'tis  changed  by  you; 
Chang'd  like  the  world's  great  scene,  when  without  noise 
The  rising  sun  night's  vulgar  lights  destroys.' 

These  disturbers  were  not  so  much  like  men  usurping 

power,  as  asserting  their  natural  place  in  society.     Their 

rising   was   to   illuminate    and   beautify   the   world.     Their 

conquest  over  their  competitors  was  by  outshining  them. 

The  hand  that,  like  a  destroying  angel,  smote  the  country, 

communicated   to  it  the  force  and  energy  under  which  it 

suffered.     I  do  not  say,  (God  forbid) — I  do  not  say,  that 

the  virtues  of  such  men  were  to  be   taken   as   a  balance 

to  their  crimes;    but  they  were   some   corrective   to  their 

effects.     Such  was,  as  I  said,  our  Cromwell.     Such  were 

your  whole  race  of  Guises,  Condds,  and  Colignis.      Such 

the  Richlieus,  who  in  more  quiet  times  acted  in  the  spirit 

of  a  civil  war.     Such,  as  better  men,  and  in  a  less  dubious 


EFFECTS   ON   THE  NATIONAL  SPIRIT.  57 

cause,  were  your  Henry  the  4th  and  your  Sully,  though 
nursed  in  civil  confusions,  and  not  wholly  without  some 
of  their  taint.  It  is  a  thing  to  be  wondered  at,  to  see 
how  very  soon  France,  when  she  had  a  moment  to  respire, 
recovered  and  emerged  from  the  longest  and  most  dreadful 
civil  war  that  ever  was  known  in  any  nation.  Why  ?  Be- 
cause, among  all  their  massacres,  they  had  not  slain  the 
t?nnd  in  their  country.  A  conscious  dignity,  a  noble  pride, 
a  generous  sense  of  glory  and  emulation,  was  not  extin- 
guished. On  the  contrary,  it  was  kindled  and  inflamed. 
The  organs  also  of  the  state,  however  shattered,  existed. 
All  the  prizes  of  honour  and  virtue,  all  the  rewards,  all 
the  distinctions,  remained.  But  your  present  confusion, 
like  a  palsy,  has  attacked  the  fountain  of  life  itself.  Every 
person  in  your  country,  in  a  situation  to  be  actuated  by 
a  principle  of  honour,  is  disgraced  and  degraded,  and  can 
entertain  no  sensation  of  life,  except  in  a  mortified  and 
humiliated  indignation.  But  this  generation  will  quickly 
pass  away.  The  next  generation  of  the  nobility  will 
resemble  the  artificers  and  clowns,  and  money- jobbers, 
usurers,  and  Jews,  who  will  be  always  their  fellows,  some-  -^ 
times  their  masters.  Believe  me.  Sir,  those  who  attempt  i 
to  level,  never  equahze.  In  all  societies,  consisting  of"*" 
various  descriptions  of  citizens,  some  description  must  be 
uppermost.  The  levellers  therefore  only  change  and  per- 
vert the  natural  order  of  things;  they  load  the  edifice  of 
society,  by  setting  up  in  the  air  what  the  solidity  of  the 
structure  requires  to  be  on  the  ground.  The  associations 
of  taylors  and  carpenters,  of  which  the  republic  (of  Paris, 
for  instance)  is  composed,  cannot  be  equal  to  the  situation, 
into  which,  by  the  worst  of  usurpations,  an  usurpation  on 
the  prerogatives  of  nature,  you  attempt  to  force  them. 

,The  chancellor  of  France  at  the  opening  of  the  states, 


58  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

said,  in  a  tone  of  oratorial  flourish,  that  all  occupations 
were  honourable.  If  he  meant  only,  that  no  honest  em- 
ployment was  disgraceful,  he  would  not  have  gone  beyond 
the  truth.  But  in  asserting,  that  any  thing  is  honourable, 
we  imply  some  distinction  in  its  favour.  The  occupation 
of  an  hair-dresser,  or  of  a  working  tallow-chandler,  cannot 
be  a  matter  of  honour  to  any  person — to  say  nothing  of 
a  number  of  other  more  servile  employments.  Such  de- 
scriptions of  men  ought  not  to  suifer  oppression  from 
the  state;  but  the  state  suffers  oppression,  if  such  as  they, 
either  individually  or  collectively,  are  permitted  to  rule. 
In  this  you  think  you  are  combating  prejudice,  but  you 
are  at  war  with  nature*. 

I  do  not,  my  dear  Sir,  conceive  you  to  be  of  that 
sophistical  captious  spirit,  or  of  that  uncandid  dulness,  as 
to  require,  for  every  general  observation  or  sentiment,  an 
explicit  detail  of  the  correctives  and  exceptions,  which 
reason  will  presume  to  be  included  in  all  the  general  pro- 
positions which  come  from  reasonable  men.  You  do  not 
imagine,  that  I  wish  to  confine  power,  authority,  and  dis- 
tinction to  blood,  and  names,  and  titles.  No,  Sir.  There 
is  no  qualification  for  government,  but  virtue  and  wisdom, 
actual  or  presumptive.     Wherever  they  are  actually  found, 

*  Ecclesiasticus,  chap,  xxxviii.  verses  24,  25.  '  The  wisdom  of  a 
learned  man  cometh  by  opportunity  of  leisure :  and  he  that  hath  little 
business  shall  become  wise.' — '  How  can  he  get  wisdom  that  holdeth 
the  plough,  and  that  glorieth  in  the  goad ;  that  driveth  oxen ;  and  is 
occupied  in  their  labours  ;  and  whose  talk  is  of  bullocks  V 

Ver.  27.  'So  every  carpenter  and  work-master  that  laboureth  night 
and  day.'  &c. 

Ver.  33.  'They  shall  not  be  sought  for  in  public  counsel,  nor  sit 
high  in  the  congregation :  They  shall  not  sit  on  the  judges  seat,  nor 
understand  the  sentence  of  judgment :  they  cannot  declare  justice  and 
judgment,  and  they  shall  not  be  found  where  parables  are  spoken.' 

Ver.  34.     '  But  they  will  maintain  the  state  of  the  world.' 

I  do  not  determine  whether  this  book  be  canonical,  as  the  Galilean 
church  (till  lately)  has  considered  it,  or  apocryphal,  as  here  it  is  taken. 
I  am  sure  it  contains  a  great  deal  of  sense,  and  truth.  , 


THE   QUALIFICATION  FOR    GOVERNMENT.  59 

they  have,  in  whatever  state,  condition,  profession  or  trade, 
the  passport  of  Heaven  to  human  place  and  honour.  Woe 
to  the  country  which  would  madly  and  impiously  reject 
the  service  of  the  talents  and  virtues,  civil,  military,  or 
religious,  that  are  given  to  grace  and  to  serve  it;  and 
would  condemn  to  obscurity  every  thing  formed  to  diffuse 
lustre  and  glory  around  a  state.  Woe  to  that  country  too, 
that  passing  into  the  opposite  extreme,  considers  a  low 
education,  a  mean  contracted  view  of  things,  a  sordid 
mercenary  occupation,  as  a  preferable  title  to  command. 
Every  thing  ought  to  be  open ;  but  not  indifferently  to 
every  man.  No  rotation;  no  appointment  by  lot;  no 
mode  of  election  operating  in  the  spirit  of  sortition  or 
rotation,  can  be  generally  good  in  a  government  conver- 
sant in  extensive  objects.  Because  they  have  no  tendency, 
direct  or  indirect,  to  select  the  man  with  a  view  to  the 
duty,  or  to  accommodate  the  one  to  the  other.  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  say,  that  the  road  to  eminence  and  power,  from 
obscure  condition,  ought  not  to  be  made  too  easy,  nor  a 
thing  too  much  of  course.  If  rare  merit  be  the  rarest  of 
all  rare  things,  it  ought  to  pass  through  some  sort  of 
probation.  The  temple  of  honour  ought  to  be  seated  on 
an  eminence.  If  it  be  open  through  virtue,  let  it  be  re- 
membered too,  that  virtue  is  never  tried  but  by  some 
difficulty,  and  some  struggle. 

Nothing  is  a  due  and  adequate  representation  of  a  state, 
that  does  not  represent  its  ability,  as  well  as  its  property. 
But  as  ability  is  a  vigorous  and  active  principle,  and  as 
property  is  sluggish,  inert,  and  timid,  it  never  can  be  safe 
from  the  invasions  of  ability,  unless  it  be,  out  of  all  propor- 
tion, predominant  in  the  representation.  It  must  be  repre- 
sented too  in  great  masses  of  accumulation,  or  it  is  not 
rightly  protected.  The  characteristic  essence  of  property, 
formed   out  of  the  combined  principles  of  its  acquisition 


6o  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

and  conservation,  is  to  be  unequal.  The  great  masses  there- 
fore which  excite  envy,  and  tempt  rapacity,  must  be  put 
out  of  the  possibility  of  danger.  Then  they  form  a  natural 
rampart  about  the  lesser  properties  in  all  their  gradations. 
The  same  quantity  of  property,  which  is  by  the  natural 
course  of  things  divided  among  many,  has  not  the  same 
operation.  Its  defensive  power  is  weakened  as  it  is  dif- 
fused. In  this  diffusion  each  man's  portion  is  less  than 
what,  in  the  eagerness  of  his  desires,  he  may  flatter  himself 
to  obtain  by  dissipating  the  accumulations  of  others.  The 
plunder  of  the  few  would  indeed  give  but  a  share  incon- 
ceivably small  in  the  distribution  to  the  many.  But  the 
many  are  not  capable  of  making  this  calculation ;  and  those 
who  lead  them  to  rapine,  never  intend  this  distribution. 

The  power  of  perpetuating  our  property  in  our  families 
is  one  of  the  most  valuable  and  interesting  circumstances 
belonging  to  it,  and  that  which  tends  the  most  to  the  per- 
petuation of  society  itself.  It  makes  our  weakness  sub- 
servient to  our  virtue;  it  grafts  benevolence  even  upon 
avarice.  The  possessors  of  family  wealth,  and  of  the  dis- 
tinction which  attends  hereditary  possession  (as  most  con- 
cerned in  it)  are  the  natural  securities  for  this  transmission. 
With  us,  the  house  of  peers  is  formed  upon  this  principle. 
It  is  wholly  composed  of  hereditary  property  and  hereditary 
distinction ;  and  made  therefore  the  third  of  the  legislature  ; 
and  in  the  last  event,  the  sole  judge  of  all  property  in  all 
its  subdivisions.  The  house  of  commons  too,  though  not 
necessarily,  yet  in  fact,  is  always  so  composed  in  the  far 
greater  part.  Let  those  large  proprietors  be  what  they 
will,  and  they  have  their  chance  of  being  amongst  the 
best,  they  are  at  the  very  worst,  the  ballast  in  the  vessel 
of  the  commonwealth.  For  though  hereditary  wealth,  and 
the  rank  which  goes  with  it,  are  too  much  idolized  by 
creeping  sycophants,  and  the  blind  abject  admirers  of  power, 


PROPERTY  THE   CHIEF   QUALIFICATION.  6l 

they  are  too  rashly  slighted  in  shallow  speculations  of  the 
petulant,  assuming,  short-sighted  coxcombs  of  philosophy. 
Some  decent  regulated  pre-eminence,  some  preference  (not 
exclusive  appropriation)  given  to  birth,  is  neither  unnatural, 
nor  unjust,  nor  impolitic. 

It  is  said,  that  twenty-four  millions  ought  to  prevail  over 
two  hundred  thousand.  True ;  if  the  constitution  of  a 
kingdom  be  a  problem  of  arithmetic.  This  sort  of  dis- 
course does  well  enough  with  the  lamp-post  for  its  second : 
to  men  who  may  reason  calmly,  it  is  ridiculous.  The  ynU. 
of  the  many,  and  their  interest,  must  very  often  differ;  and 
great  will  be  the  difference  when  they  make  an  evil  choice, 
A  government  of  five  hundred  country  attornies  and  obscure 
curates  is  not  good  for  twenty- four  millions  of  men,  though 
it  were  chosen  by  eight  and  forty  millions;  nor  is  it  the 
better  for  being  guided  by  a  dozen  of  persons  of  quality, 
who  have  betrayed  their  trust  in  order  to  obtain  that  power. 
At  present,  you  seem  in  everything  to  have  strayed  out  of 
the  high  road  of  nature.  The  property  of  France  does  not 
govern  it.  Of  course  property  is  destroyed,  and  rational 
liberty  has  no  existence.  All  you  have  got  for  the  present 
is  a  paper  circulation,  and  a  stock-jobbing  constitution  :  and 
as  to  the  future,  do  you  seriously  think  that  the  territory 
of  France,  under  the  republican  system  of  eighty-three  in- 
dependent municipalities,  (to  say  nothing  of  the  parts  that 
compose  them)  can  ever  be  governed  as  one  body,  or  can 
ever  be  set  in  motion  by  the  impulse  of  one  mind  ?  When 
the  National  Assembly  has  completed  its  work,  it  will  have 
accomplished  its  ruin.  These  commonwealths  will  not  long 
bear  a  state  of  subjection  to  the  republic  of  Paris.  They 
will  not  bear  that  this  one  body  should  monopolize  the 
captivity  of  the  king,  and  the  dominion  over  the  assembly 
calling  itself  National.  Each  will  keep  its  own  portion  of 
the  spoil  of  the  church  to  itself;  and  it  will  not  suffer  either 


S) 


62]  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 


that  spoil,  or  the  more  just  fruits  of  their  industry,  or  the 
natural  produce  of  their  soil,  to  be  sent  to  swell  the  in- 
solence, or  pamper  the  luxury  of  the  mechanics  of  Paris. 
In  this  they  will  see  none  of  the  equality,  under  the  pretence 
of  which  they  have  been  tempted  to  throw  off  their  allegiance 
to  their  sovereign,  as  well  as  the  antient  constitution  of  their 
country.  There  can  be  no  capital  city  in  such  a  constitution 
as  they  have  lately  made.  They  have  forgot,  that  when  they 
framed  democratic  governments,  they  had  virtually  dismem- 
bered their  country.  The  person  whom  they  persevere  in 
calling  king,  has  not  power  left  to  him  by  the  hundredth 
part  sufficient  to  hold  together  this  collection  of  republics. 
The  republic  of  Paris  will  endeavour  indeed  to  compleat 
the  debauchery  of  the  army,  and  illegally  to  perpetuate  the 
assembly,  without  resort  to  its  constituents,  as  the  means  of 
continuing  its  despotism.  It  will  make  efforts,  by  becoming 
the  heart  of  a  boundless  paper  circulation,  to  draw  every 
thing  to  itself;  but  in  vain.  All  this  policy  in  the  end  will 
appear  as  feeble  as  it  is  now  violent. 

If  this  be  your  actual  situation,  compared  to  the  situation 
to  which  you  were  called,  as  it  were  by  the  voice  of  God 
and  man,  I  cannot  find  it  in  my  heart  to  congratulate  you 
on  the  choice  you  have  made,  or  the  success  which  has 
attended  your  endeavours.  I  can  as  little  recommend  to 
any  other  nation  a  conduct  grounded  on  such  principles, 
and  productive  of  such  effects.  That  I  must  leave  to  those 
who  can  see  further  into  your  affairs  than  I  am  able  to  do, 
and  who  best  know  how  far  your  actions  a-'e  favourable 
to  their  designs.  The  gentlemen  of  the  Revolution  Society, 
who  were  so  early  in  their  congratulations,  appear  to  be 
strongly  of  opinion  that  there  is  some  scheme  of  politics 
relative  to  this  country,  in  which  your  proceedings  may, 
in  some  way,  be  useful.     For  your  Dr.  Price,  who  seems 


THE   OCCASION  IN  ENGLAND.  63 

to  have  speculated  himself  into  no  small  degree  of  fervour 
upon  this  subject,  addresses  his  auditory  in  the  following 
very  remarkable  words :  '  I  cannot  conclude  without  re- 
calling partiadarly  to  your  recollection  a  consideration 
which  I  have  more  than  once  alluded  to,  and  which  probably 
your  thoughts  have  been  all  along  anticipating ;  a  considera- 
tion with  which  my  mind  is  impressed  more  than  I  can  express. 
I  mean  the  consideration  of  \hQ  favourableness  of  the  present 
times  to  all  exertions  in  the  cause  of  liberty! 

It  is  plain  that  the  mind  of  this  political  Preacher  was  at 
the  time  big  with  some  extraordinary  design ;  and  it  is  very 
probable,  that  the  thoughts  of  his  audience,  who  understood 
him  better  than  I  do,  did  all  along  run  before  him  in  his 
reflection,  and  in  the  whole  train  of  consequences  to  which 
it  led. 

Before  I  read  that  sermon,  I  really  thought  I  had  lived  in 
a  free  country ;  and  it  was  an  error  I  cherished,  because  it 
gave  me  a  greater  liking  to  the  country  I  lived  in.  1  was 
indeed  aware,  that  a  jealous,  ever-waking  vigilance,  to  guard 
the  treasure  of  our  liberty,  not  only  from  invasion,  but  from 
decay  an4  corruption,  was  our  best  wisdom  and  our  first 
duty.  However,  I  considered  that  treasure  rather  as  a  pos- 
session to  be  secured  than  as  a  prize  to  be  contended 
for.  I  did  not  discern  how  the  present  time  came  to  be 
so  very  favourable  to  all  exertions  in  the  cause  of  freedom. 
The  present  time  differs  from  any  other  only  by  the  circum- 
stance of  what  is  doing  in  France.  If  the  example  of  that 
nation  is  to  have  an  influence  on  this,  I  can  easily  conceive 
why  some  of  their  proceedings  which  have  an  unpleasant  as- 
pect, and  are  not  quite  reconcileable  to  humanity,  generosity, 
good  faith,  and  justice,  are  palliated  with  so  much  milky 
good-nature  towards  the  actors,  and  borne  with  so  much 
heroic  fortitude  towards  the  sufferers.  It  is  certainly  not 
prudent  to  discredit  the  authority  of  an  example  we  mean 


64  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

to  follow.  But  allowing  this,  we  are  led  to  a  very  natural 
question  ; — What  is  that  cause  of  liberty,  and  what  are  those 
exertions  in  its  favour,  to  which  the  example  of  France  is  so 
singularly  auspicious  ?  Is  our  monarchy  to  be  annihilated, 
with  all  the  laws,  all  the  tribunals,  and  all  the  antient 
corporations  of  the  kingdom  ?  Is  every  land-mark  of  the 
country  to  be  done  away  in  favour  of  a  geometrical  and 
arithmetical  constitution?  Is  the  house  of  lords  to  be 
voted  useless  ?  Is  episcopacy  to  be  abolished  ?  Are  the 
church  lands  to  be  sold  to  Jews  and  jobbers;  or  given 
to  bribe  new-invented  municipal  republics  into  a  participa- 
tion in  sacrilege  ?  Are  all  the  taxes  to  be  voted  grievances, 
and  the  revenue  reduced  to  a  patriotic  contribution,  or 
patriotic  presents?  Are  silver  shoe-buckles  to  be  substi- 
tuted in  the  place  of  the  land  tax  and  the  malt  tax,  for 
the  support  of  the  naval  strength  of  this  kingdom  ?  Are 
all  orders,  ranks,  and  distinctions,  to  be  confounded,  that 
out  of  universal  anarchy,  joined  to  national  bankruptcy, 
three  or  four  thousand  democracies  should  be  formed  into 
eighty-three,  and  that  they  may  all,  by  some  sort  of  unknown 
attractive  power,  be  organized  into  one  ?  For  this  great  end, 
is  the  army  to  be  seduced  from  its  discipline  and  its  fidelity, 
first,  by  every  kind  of  debauchery,  and  then  by  the  terrible 
precedent  of  a  donative  in  the  encrease  of  pay  ?  Are  the 
curates  to  be  seduced  from  their  bishops,  by  holding  out  to 
them  the  delusive  hope  of  a  dole  out  of  the  spoils  of  their 
own  order  ?  Are  the  citizens  of  London  to  be  drawn  from 
their  allegiance,  by  feeding  them  at  the  expence  of  their 
fellow-subjects  ?  Is  a  compulsory  paper  currency  to  be  sub- 
stituted in  the  place  of  the  legal  coin  of  this  kingdom  ?  Is 
what  remains  of  the  plundered  stock  of  public  revenue  to  be 
employed  in  the  wild  project  of  maintaining  two  armies  to 
watch  over  and  to  fight  with  each  other? — If  these  are  the 
ends  and  means  of  the  Revolution  Society,  I  admit  they  are 


REPRESENTATION  IN  ENGLAND.  6^ 

well  assorted ;  and  France  may  furnish  them  for  both  with 
precedents  in  point. 

I  see  that  your  example  is  held  out  to  shame  us.  I  know 
that  we  are  supposed  a  dull  sluggish  race,  rendered  passive 
by  finding  our  situation  tolerable ;  and  prevented  by  a  me- 
diocrity of  freedom  from  ever  attaining  to  its  full  perfection. 
Your  leaders  in  France  began  by  affecting  to  admire,  almost 
to  adore,  the  British  constitution  ;  but  as  they  advanced  they 
came  to  look  upon  it  with  a  sovereign  contempt.  The 
friends  of  your  National  Assembly  amongst  us  have  full 
as  mean  an  opinion  of  what  was  formerly  thought  the  glory 
of  their  country.  The  Revolution  Society  has  discovered 
that  the  English  nation  is  not  free.  They  are  convinced  that 
the  inequality  in  our  representation  is  a  '  defect  in  our  con- 
stitution so  gross  and  palpable,  as  to  make  it  excellent  chiefly 
inform  and  theory*.'  That  a  representation  in  the  legisla- 
ture of  a  kingdom  is  not  only  the  basis  of  all  constitutional 
liberty  in  it,  but  of  'all  legitimate  government ;  that  without  it 
a  government  is  nothing  but  an  usurpation  ;  ' — that  '  when 
the  representation  is  partial,  the  kingdom  possesses  liberty 
only  partially;  and  if  extremely  partial  it  gives  only  a  se7?i- 
blance ;  and  if  not  only  extremely  partial,  but  corruptly 
chosen,  it  becomes  a  nuisance.'  Dr.  Price  considers  this 
inadequacy  of  representation  as  our  fundamental  grievance ; 
and  though,  as  to  the  corruption  of  this  semblance  of  repre- 
sentation, he  hopes  it  is  not  yet  arrived  to  its  full  perfection 
of  depravity ;  he  fears  that  '  nothing  will  be  done  towards 
gaining  for  us  this  essential  blessitig,  until  some  great  abuse  of 
power  again  provokes  our  resentment,  or  some  great  calamity 
again  alarms  our  fears,  or  perhaps  till  the  acquisition  of  a 
pure  and  equal  representation  by  other  countries,  whilst  we  are 
mocked  with  the  shadow,  kindles  our  shame.'  To  this  he 
subjoins  a  note  in  these  words.     '  A  representation,  chosen 

*  Discourse  on  the  Love  of  our  Country,  3d  edit.  p.  39. 
VOL.  II.  F 


66  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

chiefly  by  the  Treasury,  and  a  /ew  thousands  of  the  dregs  of 
the  people,  who  are  generally  paid  for  their  votes.' 

You  will  smile  here  at  the  consistency  of  those  democra- 
I  lists,  who,  when  they  are  not  on  their  guard,  treat  the 
I  humbler  part  of  the  community  with  the  greatest  contempt, 
!  whilst,  at  the  same  time,  they  pretend  to  make  them  the 
I  depositories  of  all  power.  It  would  require  a  long  discourse 
to  point  out  to  you  the  many  fallacies  that  lurk  in  the 
generality  and  equivocal  nature  of  the  terms  'inadequate 
representation,'  I  shall  only  say  here,  in  justice  to  that  old- 
fashioned  constitution,  under  which  we  have  long  prospered, 
that  our  representation  has  been  found  perfectly  adequate  to 
all  the  purposes  for  which  a  representation  of  the  people  can 
be  desired  or  devised.  I  defy  the  enemies  of  our  constitu- 
tion to  show  the  contrary.  To  detail  the  particulars  in 
which  it  is  found  so  well  to  promote  its  ends,  would  demand 
a  treatise  on  our  practical  constitution.  I  state  here  the 
doctrine  of  the  Revolutionists,  only  that  you  and  others  may 
see,  what  an  opinion  these  gentlemen  entertain  of  the  consti- 
tution of  their  country,  and  why  they  seem  to  think  that 
some  great  abuse  of  power,  or  some  great  calamity,  as  giving 
a  chance  for  the  blessing  of  a  constitution  according  to  their 
ideas,  would  be  much  palliated  to  their  feelings;  you  see 
why  they  are  so  much  enamoured  of  your  fair  and  equal 
representation,  which  being  once  obtained,  the  same  effects 
might  follow.  You  see  they  consider  our  house  of  com- 
mons as  only  *a  semblance,'  *a  form,'  *a  theory,'  *a 
shadow,'  '  a  mockery,'  perhaps  '  a  nuisance.' 
,—  These  gentlemen  value  themselves  on  being  systematic; 
and  not  without  reason.  They  must  therefore  look  on  this 
gross  and  palpable  defect  of  representation,  this  fundamental 
grievance  (so  they  call  it),  as  a  thing  not  only  vicious  in  itself, 
but  as  rendering  our  whole  government  absolutely  illegiiimaiey 


ENGLISH  REVOLUTIONISTS.  6y 

and  not  at  all  better  than  a  downright  usurpation.  Another 
revolution,  to  get  rid  of  this  illegitimate  and  usurped  govern- 
ment, would  of  course  be  perfectly  justifiable,  if  not  absolutely 
necessary.  Indeed  their  principle,  if  you  observe  it  with  any 
attention,  goes  much  further  than  to  an  alteration  in  the  elec- 
tion of  the  house  of  commons ;  for,  if  popular  representation, 
or  choice,  is  necessary  to  the  legitimacy  of  all  government,  the 
house  of  lords  is,  at  one  stroke,  bastardized  and  corrupted  in 
blood.  That  house  is  no  representative  of  the  people  at  all, 
even  in  '  semblance  *  or  in  '  form.'  The  case  of  the  crown  is 
altogether  as  bad.  In  vain  the  crown  may  endeavour  to 
screen  itself  against  these  gendemen  by  the  authority  of  the 
establishment  made  on  the  Revolution.  The  Revolution 
which  is  resorted  to  for  a  title,  on  their  system,  wants  a  title 
itself.  The  Revolution  is  built,  according  to  their  theory, 
upon  a  basis  not  more  solid  than  our  present  formalities,  as  it 
was  made  by  an  house  of  lords  not  representing  any  one  but 
themselves;  and  by  an  house  of  commons  exactly  such  as 
the  present,  that  is,  as  they  term  it,  by  a  mere  '  shadow  and  » 
mockery '  of  representation.  .  / 

Something  they  must  destroy,  or  they  seem  to  themselvesN 
to  exist  for  no  purpose.  One  set  is  for  destroying  the  civil 
power  through  the  ecclesiastical;  another  for  demolishing 
the  ecclesiastick  through  the  civil.  They  are  aware  that  the 
worst  consequences  might  happen  to  the  public  in  accom- 
plishing this  double  ruin  of  church  and  state ;  but  they  are 
so  heated  with  their  theories,  that  they  give  more  than  hints, 
that  this  ruin,  with  all  the  mischiefs  that  must  lead  to  it  and 
attend  it,  and  which  to  themselves  appear  quite  certain, 
would  not  be  unacceptable  to  them,  or  very  remote  from 
their  wishes.  A  man  amongst  them  of  great  authority,  and 
certainly  of  great  talents,  speaking  of  a  supposed  alliance 
between  church  and  state,  says,  '  perhaps  we  must  wait  for 
the  fall  of  the  civil  powers  before  this  most  unnatural  alliance 

F    2 


68  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

I  be  broken.  Calamitous  no  doubt  will  that  time  be.  But 
'  what  convulsion  in  the  political  world  ought  to  be  a  subject 

of  lamentation,  if  it  be  attended  with  so  desirable  an  effect?' 
i  You  see  with  what  a  steady  eye  these  gentlemen  are  prepared 

to  view  the  greatest  calamities  which  can  befall  their  country  I 

It  is  no  wonder  therefore,  that  with  these  ideas  of  every 
thing  in  their  constitution  and  government  at  home,  either  in 
church  or  state,  as  illegitimate  and  usurped,  or,  at  best  as 
a  vain  mockery,  they  look  abroad  with  an  eager  and  pas- 
sionate enthusiasm.  Whilst  they  are  possessed  by  these 
notions,  it  is  vain  to  talk  to  them  of  the  practice  of  their 
ancestors,  the  fundamental  laws  of  their  country,  the  fixed 
form  of  a  constitution,  whose  merits  are  confirmed  by  the 
solid  test  of  long  experience,  and  an  increasing  public 
strength  and  national  prosperity.  They  despise  experience 
as  the  wisdom  of  unlettered  men.;  and  as  for  the  rest,  they 
have  wrought  under-ground  a  mine  that  will  blow  up  at  one 
grand  explosion  all  examples  of  antiquity,  all  precedents, 
charters,  and  acts  of  parliament.  They  have  '  the  rights  of 
men.'  Against  these  there  can  be  no  prescription ;  against 
these  no  agreement  is  binding  :  these  admit  no  temperament, 
and  no  compromise :  any  thing  withheld  from  their  full  de- 
mand is  so  much  of  fraud  and  injustice.  Against  these  their 
rights  of  men  let  no  government  look  for  security  in  the 
length  of  its  continuance,  or  in  the  justice  and  lenity  of  its 
'  administration.  The  objections  of  these  speculatists,  if  its 
forms  do  not  quadrate  with  their  theories,  are  as  valid 
against  such  an  old  and  beneficent  government  as  against 
the  most  violent  tyranny,  or  the  greenest  usurpation.  They 
are  always  at  issue  with  governments,  not  on  a  question  of 
abuse,  but  a  question  of  competency,  and  a  question  of  title. 
I  have  nothing  to  say  to  the  clumsy  subtilty  of  their  political 
metaphysics.    Let  them  be  their  amusement  in  the  schools. — 


THE  REAL   RIGHTS   OF  MEN.  69 

'  Ilia  sejactet  in  aula — ^olus,  ei  clauso  ventorum  carcere  reg- 
nei.' — But  let  them  not  break  prison  to  burst  like  a  Levanter, 
to  sweep  the  earth  with  their  hurricane,  and  to  break  up  the 
fountains  of  the  great  deep  to  overwhelm  us. 

Far  am  I  from  denying  in  theory ;  full  as  far  is  my  heart 
from  withholding  in  practice,  (if  I  were  of  power  to  give  or 
to  withhold,)  the  real  rights  of  men.  In  denying  their  false 
claims  of  right,  I  do  not  mean  to  injure  those  which  are  real, 
and  are  such  as  their  pretended  rights  would  totally  destroy. 
If  civil  society  be  made  for  the  advantage  of  man,  all  the  ad- 
vantages for  which  it  is  made  become  his  right.  It  is  an 
institution  of  beneficence ;  and  law  itself  is  only  beneficence 
acting  by  a  rule.  Men  have  a  right  to  live  by  that  rule; 
they  have  a  right  to  justice;  as  between  their  fellows, 
whether  their  fellows  are  in  politic  function  or  in  ordinary 
occupation.  They  have  a  right  to  the  fruits  of  their  in- 
dustry; and  to  the  means  of  making  their  industry  fruitful. 
They  have  a  right  to  the  acquisitions  of  their  parents  ;  to  the 
nourishment  and  improvement  of  their  offspring ;  to  instruc- 
tion in  life,  and  to  consolation  in  death.  Whatever  each 
man  can  separately  do,  without  trespassing  upon  others,  he 
has  a  right  to  do  for  himself;  and  he  has  a  right  to  a  fair 
portion  of  all  which  society,  with  all  its  combinations  of  skill 
and  force,  can  do  in  his  favour.  In  this  partnership  all  men 
have  equal  rights ;  but  not  to  equal  things.  He  that  has  but 
five  shillings  in  the  partnership,  has  as  good  a  right  to  it,  as 
he  that  has  five  hundred  pound  has  to  his  larger  proportion. 
But  he  has  not  a  right  to  an  equal  dividend  in  the  product 
of  the  joint  stock ;  and  as  to  the  share  of  power,  authority, 
and  direction  which  each  individual  ought  to  have  in  the 
management  of  the  state,  that  I  must  deny  to  be  amongst 
the  direct  original  rights  of  man  in  civil  society ;  for  I  have 
in  my  contemplation  the  civil  social  man,  and  no  other.  It 
is  a  thing  to  be  settled  by  convention. 


7o) 


REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 


If  civil  society  be  the  offspring  of  convention,  that  conven- 
tion" must  be  its  law.  That  convention  must  limit  an3^-- 
modify  all  the  descriptions  of  constitution  which  are  formed 
under  it.  Every  sort  of  legislative,  judicial,  or  executory 
power  are  its  creatures.  They  can  have  no  being  in  any 
other  state  of  things ;  and  how  can  any  man  claim,  under  the 
conventions  of  civil  society,  rights  which  do  not  so  much  as 
suppose  its  existence  ?  Rights  which  are  absolutely  repug- 
nant to  it  ?  One  of  the  first  motives  to  civil  society,  and 
which  becomes  one  of  its  fundamental  rules,  is,  //laf  no  man 
should  be  judge  in  his  own  cause.  By  this  each  person  has  at 
once  divested  himself  of  the  first  fundamental  right  of  un- 
covenanted  man,  that  is,  to  judge  for  himself,  and  to  assert 
his  own  cause.  He  abdicates  all  right  to  be  his  own 
governor.  He  inclusively,  in  a  great  measure,  abandons  the 
right  of  self-defence,  the  first  law  of  nature.  Men  cannot 
enjoy  the  rights  of  an  uncivil  and  of  a  civil  state  together. 
That  he  may  obtain  justice  he  gives  up  his  right  of  deter- 
mining what  it  is  in  points  the  most  essential  to  him.  That 
he  may  secure  some  liberty,  he  makes  a  surrender  in  trust 
of  the  whole  of  it. 

GovERNiffiENT  is  HOt  made  in  virtue  of  natural  rights,  which  • 
may  and  do  exist  in  total  independence  of  it ;  and  exist  in  * 
much  greater  clearness,  and  in  a  much  greater  degree  of  • 
abstract  perfection:    but  their  abstract  perfection  is  their 
practical  defect.     By  having  a  right  to  every  thing  they  want 
every  thing.     Government  is  a  contrivance  of  human  wis-  * 
dom  to  provide  Tor  human  wants.    Men  have  a  right  that  ^ 
these  wants  should  be  provided  for  by  this  wisdom.     Among 
these  wants  is  to  be  reckoned  the  want,  out  of  civil  society, 
of  a  sufficient  restraint  upon  their  passions.     Society  re- 
quires not  only  that  the  passions  of  individuals  should  be  sub- 
jected, but  that  even  in  the  mass  and  body  as  well  as  in  the 


THE   SCIENCE   OF   GOVERNMENT.  7 1 

individuals,  the  inclinations  of  men  should  frequently  be 
thwarted,  their  will  controlled,  and  their  passions  brought 
into  subjection.  This  can  only  be  done  by  a  power  out  of 
themselves ;  and  not,  in  the  exercise  of  its  function,  subject 
to  that  will  and  to  those  passions  which  it  is  its  office  to 
bridle  and  subdue.  In  this  sense  the  restraints  on  men,  as 
well  as  their  liberties,  are  to  be  reckoned  among  their  rights. 
But  as  the  liberties  and  the  restrictions  vary  with  times  and 
circumstances,  and  admit  of  infinite  modifications,  they  can- 
not be  settled  upon  any  abstract  rule;  and  nothing  is  so 
foolish  as  to  discuss  them  upon  that  principle. 

The  moment  you  abate  any  thing  from  the  full  rights  of 
men,  each  to  govern  himself,  and  suff'er  any  artificial  positive 
limitation  upon  those  rights,  from  that  moment  the  whole 
organization  of  government  becomes  a  consideration  of  con- 
venience.    This  it  is  which  makes  the  constitution  of  a  state, 
and  the  due  distribution  of  its  powers,  a  matter  of  the  niost 
delicate  and  complicated  skill.     It  requires  a  deep  know- 
ledge of  human  nature  and  human  necessities,  and  of  the 
things  which  facilitate  or  obstruct  the  various  ends  which  are 
to  be  pursued  by  the  mechanism  of  civil  institutions.     The 
state  is  to  have  recruits  to  its  strength,  and  remedies  to  its 
.  distempers.     What  is  the  use  of  discussing  a  man's  abstract 
'  right  to  food  or  to  medicine  ?     The  question  is  upon  the 
.  method  of  procuring  and  administering  them.     In  that  de- 
liberation I  shall  always  advise  to  call  in  the  aid  of  the 
farmer  and   the   physician,  rather   than    the   professor   of 
•  metaphysics. 

The  scigice  of  constructing  a  commonwealth,  or  reno- 
vating it,  or  reforming  it,  is,  like  every  other  experimental 
science,  not  to  be  taught  a  priori.  Nor  is  it  a  short  ex-  ' 
'perience  that  can  instruct  us  in  that  practical  science ; 
because  the  real  eff'ects  of  moral  causes  are  not  always  im- 
mediate; but  that  which  in  the  first  instance  is  prejudicial 


72  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

may  be  excellent  in  its  remoter  operation ;  and  its  excellence 
may  arise  even  from  the  ill  effects  it  produces  in  the  begin- 
ning. The  reverse  also  happens ;  and  very  plausible  schemes, 
with  very  pleasing  commencements,  have  often  shameful 
and  lamentable  conclusions.  In  states  there  are  often  some 
obscure  and  almost  latent  causes,  things  which  appear  at 
first  view  of  little  moment,  on  which  a  very  great  part  of  its 
prosperity  or  adversity  may  most  essentially  depend.  The 
science  of  government  being  therefore  so  practical  in  itself, 
and  intended  for  such  practical  purposes,  a  matter  which 
requires  experience,  and  even  more  experience  than  any 
person  can  gain  in  his  whole  life,  however  sagacious  and 
observing  he  may  be,  it  is  with  infinite  caution  that  any  mar 
ought  to  venture  upon  pulling  down  an  edifice  which  has 
answered  in  any  tolerable  degree  for  ages  the  common  pur- 
poses of  society,  or  on  building  it  up  again,  without  having 
models  and  patterns  of  approved  utility  before  his  eyes. 

These  metaphysic  rights  entering  into  common  life,  like 
rays  of  light  which  pierce  into  a  dense  medium,  are,  by  the 
laws  of  nature,  refracted  from  their  straight  line.  Indeed  in 
the  gross  and  complicated  mass  of  human  passions  and 
concerns,  the  primitive  rights  of  men  undergo  such  a  variety 
of  refractions  and  reflections,  that  it  becomes  absurd  to  talk 
of  them  as  if  they  continued  in  the  simplicity  of  their  orighial 
direction.  The  nature  of  man  is  intricate;  the  objects  of 
society  are  of  the  greatest  possible  complexity ;  and  therefore 
no  simple  disposition  or  direction  of  power  can  be  suitable 
either  to  man's  nature,  or  to  the  quality  of  his  affairs.  When 
I  hear  the  simplicity  of  contrivance  aimed  at  and, boasted  of 
in  any  new  poHtical  constitutions,  I  am  at  no  loss  to  decide 
that  the  artificers  are  grossly  ignorant  of  their  trade,  or 
totally  negligent  of  their  duty.  The  simple  governments  are 
fundamentally  defective,  to  say  no  worse  of  them.  If  you 
were  to  contemplate  society  in  but  one  point  of  view,  all 

1 


GOVERNMENT  AND  HUMAN  NATURE. 


7) 


these  simple  modes  of  polity  are  infinitely  captivating.  In 
effect  each  would  answer  its  single  end  much  more  perfectly 
than  the  more  complex  is  able  to  attain  all  its  complex 
purposes.  But  it  is  better  that  the  whole  should  be  imper- 
fectly and  anomalously  answered,  than  that,  while  some 
parts  are  provided  for  with  great  exactness,  others  might  be 
totally  neglected,  or  perhaps  materially  injured,  by  the  over- 
care  of  a  favourite  member. 
-4  The  pretended  rights  of  these  theorists  are  all  extremes ; 
and  in  proportion  as  they  are  metaphysically  true,  they  are 
morally  and  politically  false.  The  rights  of  men  are  in  a 
sort  of  middle,  incapable  of  definition,  but  not  impossible  to 
be  discerned.  The  rights  of  men  in  governments  are  their 
advantages ;  and  these  are  often  in  balances  between  differ- 
ences of  good;  in  compromises  sometimes  between  good 
and  evil,  and  sometimes,  between  evil  and  evil.  Political 
reason  is  a  computing  principle ;  adding,  subtracting,  multi- 
plying, and  dividing,  morally  and  not  metaphysically  or 
mathematically,  true  moral  denominations. 

By  these  theorists  the  right  of  the  people  is  almost  always 
sophistically  confounded  with  their  power.  The  body  of  the 
community,  whenever  it  can  come  to  act,  can  meet  with  no 
effectual  resistance;  but  till  power  and  right  are  the  same, 
the  whole  body  of  them  has  no  right  inconsistent  with 
virtue,  and  the  first  of  all  virtues,  prudence.  Men  have  no 
right  to  what  is  notj;easonal)le»-aad-tcuwJiaJLis  norfoFTheiF 

"benefit ;  "1oF~though  a  pleasant'  writer  said,  Liceat  per  ire 
poeiis,  when  one  of  them,  in  cold  blood,  is  said  to  have 
leaped  into  the  flames  of  a  volcanic  revolution,  Ardentem 

frigidus  jElnam  insiluit,  I  consider  such  a  frolic  rather  as  an 
unjustifiable  poetic  licence,  than  as  one  of  the  franchises  of 
Parnassus ;  and  whether  he  were  poet,  or  divine,  or  politician, 
that  chose  to  exercise  this  kind  of  right,  I  think  that  more 
wise,  because  more  charitable  thoughts  would  urge  me  rather 


74  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

to  save  the  man,  than  to  preserve  his  brazen  slippers  as  the 
monuments  of  his  folly. 

The  kind  of  anniversary  sermons,  to  which  a  great  part 
of  what  I  write  refers,  if  men  are  not  shamed  out  of  their 
present  course,  in  commemorating  the  fact,  will  cheat  many 
out  of  the  principles,  and  deprive  them  of  the  benefits  of  the 
r-  Revolution  they  commemorate.  I  confess  to  you,  Sir,  I 
'  never  liked  this  continual  talk  of  resistance  and  revolutioh, 
or  the  practice  of  making  the  extreme  medicine  of  the 
constitution  its  daily  bread.  It  renders  the  habit  of  society 
dangerously  valetudinary:  it  is  taking  periodical  doses  of 
mercury  sublimate,  and  swallowing  down  repeated  provo- 
catives of  cantharides  to  our  love  of  liberty. 

This  distemper  of  remedy,  grown  habitual,  relaxes  and 
wears  out,  by  a  vulgar  and  prostituted  use,  the  spring  of  that 
spirit  which  is  to  be  exerted  on  great  occasions.  It  was  in 
the  most  patient  period  of  Roman  servitude  that  themes  of 
tyrannicide  made  the  ordinary  exercise  of  boys  at  school — 
cum  perimit  sosvos  classis  numerosa  fyrannos.  In  the  ordinary 
state  of  things,  it  produces  in  a  country  like  ours  the  worst 
eflfects,  even  on  the  cause  of  that  liberty  which  it  abuses  with 
the  dissoluteness  of  an  extravagant  speculation.  Almost  all 
the  high-bred  republicans  of  my  time  have,  after  a  short 
space,  become  the  most  decided,  thorough-paced  courtiers  ; 
they  soon  left  the  business  of  a  tedious,  moderate,  but  prac- 
tical resistance,  to  those  of  us  whom,  in  the  pride  and 
intoxication  of  their  theories,  they  have  slighted,  as  not 
much  better  than  tories.  Hypocrisy,  of  course,  delights  in 
the  most  sublime  speculations;  for,  never  intending  to  go 
beyond  speculation,  it  costs  nothing  to  have  it  magnificent. 
But  even  in  cases  where  rather  Ifevity  than  fraud  was  to  be 
suspected  in  these  ranting  speculations,  the  issue  has  been 
much  the  same.     These  professors,  finding  their  extreme 


JACOBINISM  MILITANT.  75 

principles  not  applicable  to  cases  which  call  only  for  a 
qualified,  or,  as  I  may  say,  civil  and  legal  resistance,  in  such 
cases  employ  no  resistance  at  alL  It  is  with  them  a  war  or 
a  revolution,  or  it  is  nothing.  Finding  their  schemes  of 
politics  not  adapted  to  the  state  of  the  world  in  which  they 
live,  they  often  come  to  think  lightly  of  all  public  principle ; 
and  are  ready,  on  their  part,  to  abandon  for  a  very  trivial 
interest  what  they  find  of  very  trivial  value.  Some  indeed 
are  of  more  steady  and  persevering  natures;  but  these  are 
eager  politicians  out  of  parliament,  who  have  little  to  tempt 
them  to  abandon  their  favourite  projects.  They  have  some 
change  in  the  church  or  state,  or  both,  constantly  in  their 
view.  When  that  is  the  case,  they  are  always  bad  citizens, 
and  perfectly  unsure  connexions.  For,  considering  their 
speculative  designs  as  of  infinite  value,  and  the  actual 
arrangement  of  the  state  as  of  no  estimation,  they  are  at  best 
indifferent  about  it.  They  see  no  merit  in  the  good,  and  no 
fault  in  the  vicious  management  of  public  affairs ;  they  rather 
rejoice  in  the  latter,  as  more  propitious  to  revolution.  They 
see  no  merit  or  demerit  in  any  man,  or  any  action,  or  any 
political  principle,  any  further  than  as  they  may  forward 
or  retard  their  design  of  change  :  they  therefore  take  up,  one 
day,  the  most  violent  and  stretched  prerogative,  and  another 
time  the  wildest  democratic  ideas  of  freedom,  and  pass  from 
the  one  to  the  other  without  any  sort  of  regard  to  cause, 
to  person,  or  to  party. 

In  France  you  are  now  in  the  crisis  of  a  revolution,  and  in  the 
transit  from  one  form  of  government  to  another — you  cannot 
see  that  character  of  men  exactly  in  the  same  situation  in 
which  we  see  it  in  this  country.  With  us  it  is  militant ;  with 
you  it  is  triumphant ;  and  you  know  how  it  can  act  when  its 
power  is  commensurate  to  its  will.  I  would  not  be  supposed 
to  confine  those  observations  to  any  description  of  men,  or 


76  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

to  comprehend  all  men  of  any  description  within  them — No ! 
far  from  it.  I  am  as  incapable  of  that  injustice,  as  I  am  of 
keeping  terms  with  those  who  profess  principles  of  extremes  ; 
and  who  under  the  name  of  religion  teach  little  else  than 
wild  and  dangerous  politics.  The  worst  of  these  politics  of 
revolution  is  this;  they  temper  and  harden  the  breast,  in 
order  to  prepare  it  for  the  desperate  strokes  which  are  some- 
times used  in  extreme  occasions.  But  as  these  occasions 
may  never  arrive,  the  mind  receives  a  gratuitous  taint;  and 
the  moral  sentiments  suffer  not  a  little,  when  no  politi- 
cal purpose  is  served  by  the  depravation.  This  sort  of 
people  are  so  taken  up  with  their  theories  about  the  rights  of 
man,  that  they  have  totally  forgot  his  nature.  Without 
opening  one  new  avenue  to  the  understanding,  they  have 
succeeded  in  stopping  up  those  that  lead  to  the  heart.  They 
have  perverted  in  themselves,  and  in  those  that  attend  to 
ihem,  all  the  well-placed  sympathies  of  the  human  breast. 

This  famous  sermon  of  the  Old  Jewry  bfeathes  nothing 
but  this  spirit  through  all  the  political  part. '^Plots,  massacres, 
assassinations,  seem  to  some  people  a  trivial  price  for 
obtaining  a  revolution.  A  cheap,  bloodless  reformation,  a 
guiltless  Uberty,  appear  flat  and  vapid  to  their  taste.  There 
must  be  a  great  change  of  scene;  there  must  be  a  mag- 
nificent stage  effect;  there  must  be  a  grand  spectacle  to 
rouze  the  imagination,  grown  torpid  with  the  lazy  enjoyment 
of  sixty  years  security,  and  the  still  unanimating  repose  of 
public  prosperity.  /The  Preacher  found  them  all  in  the 
French  revolution.  This  inspires  a  juvenile  warmth  through 
his  whole  frame.  His  enthusiasm  kindles  as  he  advances; 
and  when  he  arrives  at  his  peroration,  it  is  in  a  full  blaze. 
Then  viewing,  from  the  Pisgah  of  his  pulpit,  the  free,  moral, 
happy,  flourishing,  and  glorious  state  of  France,  as  in  a  bird- 
eye  landscape  of  a  promised  land,  he  breaks  out  into  the 
following  rapture : 


PRICE  AND   PETERS.  77 

'  What  an  eventful  period  is  this !  I  am  thanliful  that  I 
have  lived  to  it ;  I  could  almost  say,  Lord,  now  letiest  thou 
thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  for  mim  eyes  have  seen  thy 
salvation. — I  have  lived  to  see  a  diffusion  of  knowledge, 
which  has  undermined  superstition  and  error. — I  have  lived 
to  see  the  rights  of  men  better  understood  than  ever ;  and 
nations  panting  for  liberty  which  seemed  to  have  lost  the 
idea  of  it. — I  have  lived  to  see  Thirty  Millions  of  People, 
indignant  and  resolute,  spurning  at  slavery,  and  demanding 
liberty  with  an  irresistible  voice.  Their  King  led  in  triumph, 
and  an  arbitrary  monarch  surrendering  himself  to  his 
subjects  *.' 

Before  I  proceed  further,  I  have  to  remark,  that  Dr.  Price 
seems  rather  to  over-value  the  great  acquisitions  of  light 
which  he  has  obtained  and  diffused  in  this  age.  The  last 
century  appears  to  me  to  have  been  quite  as  much  en- 
lightened. It  had,  though  in  a  different  place,  a  triumph  as 
memorable  as  that  of  Dr.  Price;  and  some  of  the  great 
preachers  of  that  period  partook  of  it  as  eagerly  as  he  has 
done  in  the  triumph  of  France.  On  the  trial  of  the  Rev. 
Hugh  Peters  for  high  treason,  it  was  deposed,  that  when 
King  Charles  was  brought  to  London  for  his  trial,  the 
Apostle  of  Liberty  in  that  day  conducted  the  triumph.  '  I 
saw,'  says  the  witness,  'his  majesty  in  the  coach  with  six 
horses,  and  Peters  riding  before  the  king  triumphing'  Dr. 
Price,  when  he  talks  as  if  he  had  made  a  discovery,  only 
follows  a  precedent ;  for,  after  the  commencement  of  the 


*  Another  of  these  reverend  gentlemen,  who  was  witness  to  some  of 
the  spectacles  which  Paris  has  lately  exhibited — expresses  himself  thus; 
'  A  king  dragged  in  submissive  triumph  by  his  conquering  subjects  is  one  of 
those  appearances  of  grandeur  which  seldom  rise  in  the  prospect  of 
human  affairs,  and  which,  during  the  remainder  of  my  life,  I  shall  think 
of  with  wonder  and  gratification.'  These  gentlemen  agree  marvellously 
in  their  feelings. 


78  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

king's  trial,  this  precursor,  the  same  Dr.  Peters,  concluding 
a  long  prayer  at  the  royal  chapel  at  Whitehall,  (he  had 
very  triumphantly  chosen  his  place)  said,  *  I  have  prayed  and 
preached  these  twenty  years ;  and  now  I  may  say  with  old 
Simeon,  Lord,  now  letiest  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  for 
mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation  *.'  Peters  had  not  the  fruits 
of  his  prayer ;  for  he  neither  departed  so  soon  as  he  wished, 
nor  in  peace.  He  became  (what  I  heartily  hope  none  of  his 
followers  may  be  iri  this  country)  himself  a  sacrifice  to  the 
triumph  which  he  led  as  Pontiff.  They  dealt  at  the  Resto- 
■  ration,  perhaps,  too  hardly  with  this  poor  good  man.  But  we 
owe  it  to  his  memory  and  his  sufferings,  that  he  had  as  much 
illumination,  and  as  much  zeal,  an^  had  as  effectually  under- 
mined all  the  superstition  and  error  which  might  impede  the 
great  business  he  was  engaged  in,  as  any  who  follow  and 
repeat  after  him,  in  this  age,  which  would  assume  to  itself  an 
exclusive  title  to  the  knowledge  of  the  rights  of  men,  and  all 
the  glorious  consequences  of  that  knowledge. 

After  this  sally  of  the  preacher  of  the  Old  Jewry,  which 
diflfers  only  in  place  and  time,  but  agrees  perfectly  with  the 
spirit  and  letter  of  the  rapture  of  1648,  the  Revolution 
Society,  the  fabricators  of  governments,  the  heroic  band  of 
cashierers  of  monarchs,  electors  of  sovereigns,  and  leaders  of 
kings  in  triumph,  strutting  with  a  proud  consciousness  of  the 
diffusion  of  knowledge,  of  which  every  member  had  obtained 
so  large  a  share  in  the  donative,  were  in  haste  to  make  a 
generous  diffusion  of  the  knowledge  they  had  thus  gra- 
tuitously received.  To  make  this  bountiful  communication, 
they  adjourned  from  the  church  in  the  Old  Jewry,  to  the 
London  Tavern ;  where  the  famous  Dr.  Price,  in  whom  the 
fumes  of  his  oracular  tripod  were  not  entirely  evaporated, 
moved   and   carried  the  resolution,  or  address  of  congra- 

♦  State  Trials,  vol.  ii.  p.  360,  p.  363. 


MORAL  ASPECT  OF   THE  'TRIUMPH.*  79 

tulation,  transmitted  by  Lord   Stanhope   to   the    National 
Assembly  of  France. 

I  FIND  a  preacher  of  the  gospel  prophaning  the  beautiful 
and  prophetic  ejaculation,  commonly  called  '  nunc  dimittis^ 
made  on  the  first  presentation  of  our  Saviour  in  the  Temple, 
and  applying  it,  with  an  inhuman  and  unnatural  rapture,  to 
the  most  horrid,  atrocious,  and  afflicting  spectacle,  that 
perhaps  ever  was  exhibited  to  the  pity  and  indignation  of 
mankind.  This  '  leading  in  iriumphl  a  thing  in  its  best  form 
unmanly  and  irreligious,  which  fills  our  Preacher  with  such 
unhallowed  transports,  must  shock,  I  believe,  the  moral  taste 
of  every  well-born-  mind.  Several  English  were  the  stupified 
and  indignant  spectators  of  that  triumph.  It  was,  unless  we 
have  been  strangely  deceived,  a  spectacle  more  resembling  a 
procession  of  American  savages,  entering  into  Onondaga, 
after  some  of  their  murders  called  victories,  and  leading  into 
hovels  hung  round  with  scalps,  their  captives,  overpowered 
with  the  scoffs  and  buffets  of  women  as  ferocious  as  them- 
selves, much  more  than  it  resembled  the  triumphal  pomp  of 
a  civilized  martial  nation — if  a  civilized  nation,  or  any  men 
who  had  a  sense  of  generosity,  were  capable  of  a  personal 
triumph  over  the  fallen  and  afflicted. 

This,  my  dear  Sir,  was  not  the  triumph  of  France.  I 
must  believe  that,  as  a  nation,  it  overwhelmed  you  with 
shame  and  horror.  I  must  believe  that  the  National  Assem- 
bly find  themselves  in  a  state  of  the  greatest  humiliation,  in 
not  being  able  to  punish  the  authors  of  this  triumph,  or  the 
actors  in  it ;  and  that  they  are  in  a  situation  in  which  any 
enquiry  they  may  make  upon  the  subject,  must  be  destitute 
even  of  the  appearance  of  liberty  or  impartiality.  The 
apology  of  that  Assembly  is  found  in  their  situation ;  but 
when  we  approve  what  they  must  bear,  it  is  in  us  the 
degenerate  choice  of  a  vitiated  mind. 


8o  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

With  a  compelled  appearance  of  deliberation,  they  vote 
under  the  dominion  of  a  stern  necessity.  They  sit  in  the 
heart,  as  it  were,  of  a  foreign  republic:  they  have  their 
residence  in  a  city  whose  constitution  has  emanated  neither 
from  the  charter  of  their  king,  nor  from  their  legislative 
power.  There  they  are  surrounded  by  an  army  not  raised 
either  by  the  authority  of  their  crown,  or  by  their  command ; 
and  which,  if  they  should  order  to  dissolve  itself,,  would 
instantly  dissolve  them.  There  they  sit,  after  a  gang  of 
assassins  had  driven  away  some  hundreds  of  the  members ; 
whilst  those  who  held  the  same  moderate  principles  with 
more  patience  or  better  hope,  continued  every  day  exposed 
to  outrageous  insults  and  murderous  threats.  There  a  ma- 
jority, sometimes  real,  sometimes  pretended,  captive  itself, 
compels  a  captive  king  to  issue  as  royal  edicts,  at  third  hand, 
the  polluted  nonsense  of  their  most  licentious  and  giddy 
coffee-houses.  It  is  notorious,  that  all  their  measures  are 
decided  before  they  are  debated.  It  is  beyond  doubt, 
that  under  the  terror  of  the  bayonet,  and  the  lamp-post,  and 
the  torch  to  their  houses,  they  are  obliged  to  adopt  all  the 
crude  and  desperate  measures  suggested  by  clubs  composed 
of  a  monstrous  medley  of  all  conditions,  tongues,  and 
nations.  Among  these  are  found  persons,  in  comparison  of 
whom  Catiline  would  be  thought  scrupulous,  and  Cethegus  a 
man  of  sobriety  and  moderadon.  Nor  is  it  in  these  clubs 
alone  that  the  publick  measures  are  deformed  into  monsters. 
They  undergo  a  previous  distortion  in  academies,  intended 
as  so  many  seminaries  for  these  clubs,  which  are  set  up  in  all 
the  places  of  publick  resort.  In  these  meetings  of  all  sorts, 
every  counsel,  in  proportion  as  it  is  daring,  and  violent,  and 
perfidious,  is  taken  for  the  mark  of  superior  genius.  /Huma- 
nity and  compassion  are  ridiculed  as  the  fruits  of  superstition 
and  ignorance.  Tenderness  to  individuals  is  considered  as 
treason  to  the  public.     Liberty  is  always  to  be  estimated 


THE  FARCE   OF  DELIBERATION.  8 1 

perfect  as  property  is  rendered  insecure.  Amidst  assassi- 
nation, massacre,  and  confiscation,  perpetrated  or  meditated, 
they  are  forming  plans  for  the  good  order  of  future  society. , 
Embracing  in  their  arms  the  carcases  of  base  criminals,  and 
promoting  their  relations  on  the  title  of  their  offences,  they 
drive  hundreds  of  virtuous  persons  to  the  same  end,  by 
.forcing  them  to  subsist  by  beggary  or  by  crime. 
_-l--  The  Assembly,  their  organ,  acts  before  them  the  farce  of 
deliberation  with  as  little  decency  as  liberty.  They  act  like 
the  comedians  of  a  fair  before  a  riotous  audience  ;  they  act 
amidst  the  tumultuous  cries  of  a  mixed  mob  of  ferocious 
men,  and  of  women  lost  to  shame,  who,  according  to  their 
insolent  fancies,  direct,  control,  applaud,  explode  them ;  and 
sometimes  mix  and  take  their  seats  amongst  them;  domi- 
neering over  them  with  a  strange  mixture  of  servile  petulance 
and  proud  presumptuous  authority.  As  they  have  inverted 
order  in  all  things,  the  gallery  is  in  the  place  of  the  house. 
This  Assembly,  which  overthrows  kings  and  kingdoms,  has 
not  even  the  physiognomy  and  aspect  of  a  grave  legislative 
body — ftec  color  wiperii,  necfrons  erat  ulla  senatus.  They  have 
a  power  given  to  them,  like  that  of  the  evil  principle,  to  subvert 
and  destroy ;  but  none  to  construct,  except  such  machines  as 
may  be  fitted  for  further  subversion  and  further  destruction. 
Who  is  it  that  admires,  and  from  the  heart  is  attached  to 
national  representative  assemblies,  but  must  turn  with  horror 
and  disgust  from  such  a  profane  burlesque,  and  abominable 
perversion  of  that  sacred  institute .-'  Lovers  of  monarchy, 
lovers  of  republicks,  must  alike  abhor  it.  The  members  of 
your  Assembly  must  themselves  groan  under  the  tyranny  of 
which  they  have  all  the  shame,  none  of  the  direction,  and 
little  of  the  profit.  I  am  sure  many  of  the  members  who 
compose  even  the  majority  of  that  body,  must  feel  as  I  do, 
notwithstanding  the  applauses  of  the  Revolution  Society. — 
Miserable  king !  miserable  Assembly  !  How  must  that  as- 
voL.  n.  G 


82  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

sembly  be  silently  scandalized  with  those  of  their  members, 
who  could  call  a  day  which  seemed  to  blot  the  sun  out  of 
Heaven,  *l7n  5eau  jour*/'  How  must  they  be  inwardly 
indignant  at  hearing  others,  who  thought  fit  to  declare  to 
them,  '  that  the  vessel  of  the  state  would  fly  forward  in  her 
course  towards  regeneration  with  more  speed  than  ever,' 
from  the  stiff  gale  of  treason  and  murder,  which  preceded 
our  Preacher's  triumph!  What  must  they  have  felt,  whilst 
with  outward  patience  and  inward  indignation  they  heard  of 
the  slaughter  of  innocent  gentlemen  in  their  houses,  that 
'  the  blood  spilled  was  not  the  most  pure  ?'  What  must  they 
have  felt,  when  they  were  besieged  by  complaints  of  dis- 
orders which  shook  their  country  to  its  foundations,  at  being 
compelled  coolly  to  tell  the  complainants,  that  they  were 
under  the  protection  of  the  law,  and  that  they  would  address 
the  king  (the  captive  king)  to  cause  the  laws  to  be  enforced 
for  their  protection;  when  the  enslaved  ministers  of  that 
captive  king  had  formally  notified  to  them,  that  there  were 
neither  law,  nor  authority,  nor  power  left  to  protect  ?  What 
must  they  have  felt  at  being  obliged,  as  a  felicitation  on  the 
present  new  year,  to  request  their  captive  king  to  forget  the 
stormy  period  of  the  last,  on  account  of  the  great  good 
which  ^e  was  likely  to  produce  to  his  people ;  to  the  com- 
plete attainment  of  which  good  they  adjourned  the  practical 
demonstrations  of  their  loyalty,  assuring  him  of  their  obedi- 
ence, when  he  should  no  longer  possess  any  authority  to 
command  ? 

This  address  was  made  with  much  good-nature  and  affec- 
tion, to  be  sure.  But  among  the  revolutions  in  France,  must 
be  reckoned  a  considerable  revolution  in  their  ideas  of  polite- 
ness, ^n  England  we  are  said  to  learn  manners  at  second- 
hand from  your  side  of  the  water,  and  that  we  dress  our 
behaviour  in  the  frippery  of  France.  If  so,  we  are  still  in 
•  6th  of  October,  1789. 


NEW  fear's  address,    1 79O.  83 

the  old  cut;  and  have  not  so  far  conformed  to  the  new 
Parisian  mode  of  good-breeding,  as  to  think  it  quite  in  the 
most  refined  strain  of  delicate  compliment,  whether  in  con- 
dolence or  congratulation,  to  say  to  the  most  humiliated 
creature  that  crawls  upon  the  earth,  that  great  public  benefits 
are  derived  from  the  murder  of  his  servants,  the  attempted 
assassination  of  himself  and  of  his  wife,  and  the  mortification, 
disgrace,  and  degradation,  that  he  has  personally  suffered. 
It  is  a  topic  of  consolation  which  our  ordinary  of  Newgate 
would  be  too  humane  to  use  to  a  criminal  at  the  foot  of  the 
gallows.  I  should  have  thought  that  the  hangman  of  Paris, 
now  that  he  is  liberalized  by  the  vote  of  the  National  As- 
sembly, and  is  allowed  his  rank  and  arms  in  the  Herald's 
College  of  the  rights  of  men,  would  be  too  generous,  too 
gallant  a  man,  too  full  of  the  sense  of  his  new  dignity,  to 
employ  that  cutting  consolation  to  any  of  the  persons  whom 
the  kze  nation  might  bring  under  the  administration  of  his 
executive  powers. 

A  man  is  fallen  indeed,  when  he  is  thus  flattered.  The 
anodyne  draught  of  oblivion,  thus  drugged,  is  well  calculated 
to  preserve  a  galling  wakefulness,  and  to  feed  the  living 
ulcer  of  a  corroding  memory.  Thus  to  administer  the  opiate 
potion  of  amnesty,  powdered  with  all  the  ingredients  of 
scorn  and  contempt,  is  to  hold  to  his  lips,  instead  of '  the 
balm  of  hurt  minds,'  the  cup  of  human  misery  full  to  the 
brim,  and  to  force  him  to  drink  it  to  the  dregs. 

Yielding  to  reasons  at  least  as  forcible  as  those  which 
were  so  delicately  urged  in  the  compliment  on  the  new  year, 
the  king  of  France  will  probably  endeavour  to  forget  these 
events,  and  that  compliment.  But  history,  who  keeps  a 
durable  record  of  all  our  acts,  and  exercises  her  awful 
censure  over  the  proceedings  of  all  sorts  of  sovereigns,  will 
not  forget  either  those  events  or  the  asra  of)  this  liberal 
refinement   in   the   intercourse    of  mankind.      History  will 

G  2 


/ 


84  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

record,  that  on  the  morning  of  the  6th  of  October  1789,  the 
king  and  queen  of  France,  after  a  day  of  confusion,  alarm, 
dismay,  and  slaughter,  lay  down,  under  the  pledged  security  of 
public  faith,  to  indulge  nature  in  a  few  hours  of  respite,  and 
troubled  melancholy  repose.  From  this  sleep  the  queen 
was  first  startled  by  the  voice  of  the  centinel  at  her  door, 
who  cried  out  to  her,  to  save  herself  by  flight — that  this  was 
the  last  proof  of  fideUty  he  could  give — that  they  were  upon 
him,  and  he  was  dead.  Instantly  he  was  cut  down.  A 
band  of  cruel  ruffians  and  assassins,  reeking  with  his  blood, 
rushed  into  the  chamber  of  the  queen,  and  pierced  with  an 
hundred  strokes  of  bayonets  and  poniards  the  bed,  from 
whence  this  persecuted  woman  had  but  just  had' time  to  fly 
almost  naked,  and  through  ways  unknown  to  the  murderers 
had  escaped  to  seek  refuge  at  the  feet  of  a  }cing  and 
husband,  not  secure  of  his  own  life  for  a  moment. 
/  This  king,  to  say  no  more  of  him,  and  this  queen,  and 
their  infant  children  (who  once  would  have  been  the  pride  and 
hope  of  a  great  and  generous  people)  were  then  forced  to 
;  abandon  the  sanctuary  of  the  most  splendid  palace  in  the 
world,  which  they  left  swimming  in  blood,  polluted  by 
massacre,  and  strewed  with  scattered  limbs  and  mutilated 
carcases.  Thence  they  were  conducted  into  the  capital  of 
their  kingdom.  Two  had  been  selected  from  the  unpro- 
voked, unresisted,  promiscuous  slaughter,  which  was  made 
of  the  gentlemen  of  birth  and  family  who  composed  the 
king's  body  guard.  These  two  gentlemen,  with  all  the 
parade  of  an  execution  of  justice,  were  cruelly  and  publickly 
dragged  to  the  block,  and  beheaded  in  the  great  court  of  the 
palace.  Their  heads  were  stuck  upon  spears,  and  led  the 
procession ;  whilst  the  royal  captives  who  followed  in  the 
train  were  slowly  moved  along,  amidst  the  horrid  yells,  and 
shrilling  screams,  and  frantic  dances,  and  infamous  con- 
tumelies, and  all  the  unutterable  abominations  of  the  furies 


THE   6th   of   OCTOBER,    1 789.  85 

of  hell,  in  the  abused  shape  of  the  vilest  of  women.  After 
they  had  been  made  to  taste,  drop  by  drop,  more  than  the 
bitterness  of  death,  in  the  slow  torture  of  a  journey  of  twelve 
miles,  protracted  to  six  hours,  they  were,  under  a  guard, 
composed  of  those  very  soldiers  who  had  thus  conducted 
them  through  this  famous  triumph,  lodged  in  one  of  the 
old  palaces  of  Paris,  now  converted  into  a  Bastile  for  kings. 

Is  this  a  triumph  to  be  consecrated  at  altars  ?  to  be  com- 
memorated with  grateful  thanksgiving  ?  to  be  offered  to  the 
divine  humanity  with  fervent  prayer  and  enthusiastick  ejacu- 
lation?—  These  Theban  and  Thracian  Orgies,  acted  in 
France,  and  applauded  only  in  the  Old  Jewry,  I  assure  you, 
kindle  prophetic  enthusiasm  in  the  minds  but  of  very  few 
people  in  this  kingdom ;  although  a  saint  and  aposde,  who 
may  have  revelations  of  his  own,  and  who  has  so  completely 
vanquished  all  the  mean  superstitions  of  the  heart,  may 
incline  to  think  it  pious  and  decorous  to  compare  it  with 
the  entrance  into  the  world  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  pro- 
claimed in  an  holy  temple  by  a  venerable  sage,  and  not  long 
before  not  worse  announced  by  the  >^oice  of  angels  to  the 
quiet  innocence  of  shepherds. 

At  first  I  was  at  a  loss  to  account  for  this  fit  of  unguarded 
transport.  I  knew,  indeed,  that  the  sufferings  of  monarchs 
make  a  delicious  repast  to  some  sort  of  palates.  There 
were  reflexions  which  might  serve  to  keep  this  appetite 
within  some  bounds  of  temperance.  But  when  I  took  one 
circumstance  into  my  consideration,  I  was  obliged  to  con- 
fess, that  much  allowance  ought  to  be  made  for  the  Society, 
and  that  the  temptation  was  too  strong  for  common  dis- 
cretion.  I  mean,  the  circumstance  of  the  lo  PcEan  of  the 
triumph,  the  animating  cry  which  called  'for  all  the 
BISHOPS  to  be  hanged  on  the  lamp-posts*,'  might  well 
have  brought  forth  a  burst  of  enthusiasm  on  the  foreseen 

*  Tous  les  Ev^ques  &  la  lanteme. 


86  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

consequences  of  this   happy   day.     I   allow   to   so   much 
enthusiasm  some  little  deviation  from  prudence.     I  allow 
this  prophet  to  break  forth  into  hymns  of  joy  and  thanks- 
giving on  an  event  which  appears  like  the  precursor  of  the 
Millennium,  and  the  projected  fifth  monarchy,  in  the  destruc- 
j  tion  of  all  church  establishments.     There  was,  however  (as 
j  in  all  human  affairs  there  is)  in  the  midst  of  this  joy  some- 
I  thing  to  exercise  the  patience  of  these  worthy  gentlemen, 
I   and   to   try  the   long-suffering  of  their  faith.     The  actual 
1   murder  of  the  king  and  queen,  and  their  child,  was  wanting 
to  the  other  auspicious  circumstances  of  this  '  beautiful  day' 
The  actual  murder  of  the  bishops,  though  called  for  by  so 
I  many  holy  ejaculations,  was  also  wanting.     A  groupe  of 
regicide    and    sacrilegious    slaughter    was    indeed    boldly 
sketched,  but  it  was  only  sketched.     It  unhappily  was  left 
unfinished,  in  this  great  history-piece   of  the  massacre  of 
innocents.     What  hardy  pencil  of  a  great  master,  from  the 
school  of  the  rights  of  men,  will  finish  it,  is  to  be  seen  here- 
after.    The  age  has  not  yet  the  compleat  benefit  of  that 
diffusion  of  knowledge  that  has  undermined  superstition  and 
error;  and  the  king  of  France  wants  another  object  or  two, 
to   consign   to  oblivion,  in  consideration  of  all   the  good 
which  is  to  arise  from  his  own  sufferings,  and  the  patriotic 
crimes  of  an  enlightened  age*. 

*  It  is  proper  here  to  refer  to  a  letter  written  upon  this  subject  by  an 
eye-witness.  That  eye-witness  was  one  of  the  most  honest,  intelli- 
gent, and  eloquent  members  of  the  National  Assembly,  one  of  the  most 
active  and  zealous  reformers  of  the  state.  He  was  obliged  to  secede 
from  the  assembly ;  and  he  afterwards  became  a  voluntary  exile,  on 
account  of  the  horrors  of  this  pious  triumph,  and  the  dispositions  of 
men,  who,  profiting  of  crimes,  if  not  causing  them,  have  taken  the  lead 
in  public  affairs. 

EXTRACT  of  M.  de  Lally-Tollendal's  Second  Letter  to  a  Friend. 

•  Parlous  du  parti  que  j'ai  pris ;  il  est  bien  justifie  dans  ma  conscience. 
Ni  cette  ville  coupable,  ni  cette  assemblee  plus  coupable  encore,  ne 
meritoient  que  je  me  justifie ;  mais  j'ai  h.  cceur  que  vous,  et  les  personnes 
qui  pensent  comme  vous,  ne  me  condamnent  pas.  Ma  sant4  je  vous  jure, 
me  rendoit  mes  fonctions  impossibles;  mais  meme  en  les  mettant  de 


THE  6th  of   OCTOBER,    1 789.  87 

Although  this  work  of  our  new  light  and  knowledge,  did 
not  go  to  the  length,  that  in  all  probability  it  was  intended 
it  should  be  carried ;  yet  I  must  think,  that  such  treatment 
of  any  human  creatures  must  be  shocking  to  any  but  those 
who  are  made  for  accompUshing  Revolutions.  But  I  cannot 
stop  here.     Influenced  by  the  inborn  feelings  of  my  nature, 

cote  il  a  ^te  au-dessus  de  mes  forces  de  supporter  plus  long-tems  Ihor- 
reur  que  me  causoit  ce  sang, — ces  tetes, — cette  reine  presque  egorgee, — 
ce  roi,  amene  esclave,  entrant  k  Paris,  au  milieu  de  ses  assassins,  et 
precede  des  tetes  de  ses  malheureux  gardes, — ces  perfides  janissaires, — 
ces  assassins, — ces  femmes  cannibales,— ce  cri  de,  tous  les  eveques  a  la 
LANTERNE,  dans  Ic  moment  ou  le  roi  entre  sa  capitale  avec  deux  eveques 
de  son  conseil  dans  sa  voiture.  Un  coup  de  fusil,  que  j'ai  vu  tirer  dans 
un  des  carosses  de  la  reine.  M.  Bailly  appellant  cela  un  beau  jour. 
L'assemblee  ayant  declare  froidement  le  matin,  qu'il  n'etoit  pas  de  sa 
dignite  d'aller  toute  entiere  environner  le  roi.  M.  Mirabeau  disant  im- 
punement  dans  cette  assemblee,  que  le  vaisseau  de  Fetat,  loins  d'etre 
arrete  dans  sa  course,  s'elanceroit  avec  jjIus  de  rapiditt5  que  jamais  vers 
sa  regeneration.  M.  Barnave,  riant  avec  lui,  quand  des  flots  de  sang 
couloient  autour  de  nous.  Le  vertueux  Mounier  *  echappant  par  miracle 
a  viiigt  assassins,  qui  avoient  voulu  faire  de  sa  tete  un  trophee  de  plus. 

'  Voila  ce  qui  me  fit  jurer  de  ne  plus  mettre  le  pied  dans  cette  caverne 
d' Anthropophages  [the  National  Assembly!  oil  je  n'avois  plus  de  force 
delever  la  voix,  ou  depuis  six  semaines  je  I'avois  elevee  en  vain.  Moi, 
Mounier,  et  tous  les  honnetes  gens,  ont  pense  que  le  dernier  effort  a  faire 
pour  le  bien  etoit  d'en  sorlir.  Aucune  idee  de  crainte  ne  s'est  approcht'e 
de  moi.  Je  rougirois  de  m'en  defendre.  J'avois  encore  re9u.  sur  la  route  de 
la  part  de  ce  peuple,  moins  coupable  que  ceux  qui  I'ont  enivre  de  fureur, 
des  acclamations,  etdes  applaudissements, dont  d'autres  auroient  ete  flattes, 
et  qui  m'ont  fait  fremir.  C'est a I'indignation,  c'est  a  Ihorreur,  c'est  aux 
convulsions  physiques,  que  le  seul  aspect  du  sang  me  fait  eprouver  que  j'ai 
c6d^.  On  brave  une  seule  mort ;  on  la  brave  plusieurs  fois,  quand  elle 
pent  etre  utile.  Mais  aucune  puissance  sous  le  ciel,  mais  aucune  opinion 
publique  ou  privee  n'ont  le  droit  de  me  condamner  k  souffrir  inutilement 
mille  supplices  par  minute,  et  k  perir  de  desespoir,  de  rage,  au  milieu 
des  triomphes,  du  crime  que  je  n'ai  pu  arreter.  lis  me  proscriront,  il 
conftsqueront  mes  biens.  Je  labourerai  la  terre,  et  je  ne  les  verrai 
plus. — Voila  ma  justification.  Vous  pourrez  la  lire,  la  montrer,  la  laisser 
copier  ;  tant  pis  pour  ceux  qui  ne  la  comprendront  pas ;  ce  ne  sera  alors 
moi  qui  auroit  eu  tort  de  la  leur  donner.' 

This  mihtaryman  had  not  so  good  nerves  as  the  peaceable  gentlemen 
of  the  Old  Jewry. — See  Mons.  Mounier's  narrative  of  these  transactions; 
a  man  also  of  honour  and  virtue,  and  talents,  and  therefore  a  fugitive. 

*  N.B.  Mr.  Mounier  was  then  speaker  of  the  National  Assembly.  He 
has  since  been  obliged  to  live  in  exile,  though  one  of  the  firmest  assertors  of 
liberty. 


88  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

and  not  being  illuminated  by  a  single  ray  of  this  new- 
sprung  modern  light,  I  confess  to  you,  Sir,  that  the  exalted 
rank  of  the  persons  suffering,  and  particularly  the  sex,  the 
beauty,  and  the  amiable  qualities  of  the  descendant  of  so 
many  kings  and  emperors,  with  the  tender  age  of  royal 
infants,  insensible  only  through  infancy  and  innocence  of 
the  cruel  outrages  to  which  their  parents  were  exposed, 
instead  of  being  a  subject  of  exultation,  adds  not  a  little  to 
my  sensibility  on  that  most  melancholy  occasion. 

I  hear  that  the  august  person,  who  was  the  principal 
object  of  our  preacher's  triumph,  though  he  supported 
himself,  felt  much  on  that  shameful  occasion.  As  a  man,  it 
became  him  to  feel  for  his  wife  and  his  children,  and  the 
faithful  guards  of  his  person,  that  were  massacred  in  cold 
blood  about  him.  As  a  prince,  it  became  him  to  feel  for  the 
strange  and  frightful  transformation  of  his  civilized  subjects, 
and  to  be  more  grieved  for  them,  than  solicitous  for  himself. 
It  derogates  little  from  his  fortitude,  while  it  adds  infinitely  to 
the  honour  of  his  humanity.  I  am  very  sorry  to  say  it,  very 
sorry  indeed,  that  such  per.sonages  are  in  a  situation  in  which 
it  is  not  unbecoming  in  us  to  praise  the  virtues  of  the  great. 

I  hear,  and  I  rejoice  to  hear,  that  the  great  lady,  the  other 
object  of  the  triumph,  has  borne  that  day  (one  is  interested 
that  beings  made  for  suffering  should  suffer  well)  and  that 
she  bears  all  the  succeeding  days,  that  she  bears  the  im- 
prisonment of  her  husband,  and  her  own  captivity,  and  the 
exile  of  her  friends,  and  the  insulting  adulation  of  addresses, 
and  the  whole  weight  of  her  accumulated  wrongs,  with  a 
serene  patience,  in  a  manner  suited  to  her  rank  and  race, 
and  becoming  the  offspring  of  a  sovereign  distinguished  for 
her  piety  and  her  courage ;  that  Hke  her  she  has  lofty  senti- 
ments; that  she  feels  with  the  dignity  of  a  Roman  matron;  that 
in  the  last  extremity  she  will  save  herself  from  the  last  disgrace, 
and  that  if  she  must  fall,  she  will  fall  by  no  ignoble  hand. 


THE   QUEEN,  89 

It  is  now  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  since  I  saw  the  queen 
of  France,  then  the  dauphiness,  at  Versailles;  and  surely 
never  lighted  on  this  orb,  which  she  hardly  seemed  to  touch, 
a  more  delightful  vision.  I  saw  her  just  above  the  horizon, 
decorating  and  cheering  the  elevated  sphere  she  just  began 
to  move  in ;  glittering  like  the  morning  star,  full  of  life,  and 
splendor,  and  joy.  Oh !  what  a  revolution  1  and  what  an 
heart  must  I  have,  to  contemplate  without  emotion  that 
elevation  and  that  fall !  Little  did  I  dream  when  she  added 
titles  of  veneration  to  those  of  enthusiastic,  distant,  respectful 
love,  that  she  should  ever  be  obliged  to  carry  the  sharp 
antidote  against  disgrace  concealed  in  that  bosom ;  little  did 
I  dream  that  I  should  have  lived  to  see  such  disasters  fallen 
upon  her  in  a  nation  of  gallant  men,  in  a  nation  of 
men  of  honour  and  of  cavaliers.  I  thought  ten  thou- 
sand swords  must  have  leaped  from  their  scabbards  to 
avenge  even  a  look  that  threatened  her  with  insult. — But 
the  age  of  chivalry  is  gone.  That  of  sophisters,  cecono- 
mists,  and  calculators,  has  succeeded;  and  the  glory  of 
Europe  is  extinguished  for  ever.  Never,  never  more,  shall 
we  behold  that  generous  loyalty  to  rank  and  sex,  that  proud 
submission,  that  dignified  obedience,  that  subordination  of 
the  heart,  which  kept  alive,  even  in  servitude  itself,  the  spirit 
of  an  exalted  freedom.  The  unbought  grace  of  life,  the 
cheap  defence  of  nations,  the  nurse  of  manly  sentiment  and 
heroic  enterprize,  is  gone!  It  is  gone,  that  sensibility  of 
principle,  that  chastity  of  honour,  which  felt  a  stain  like 
a  wound,  which  inspired  courage  whilst  it  mitigated  ferocity, 
which  ennobled  whatever  it  touched,  and  under  which  vice 
itself  lost  half  its  evil,  by  losing  all  its  grossness. 

This  mixed  system  of  opinion  and  sentiment  had  its 
origin  in  the  antient  chivalry;  and  the  principle,  though 
varied  in  its  appearance  by  the  varying  state   of  human 


90  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

affairs,  subsisted  and  influenced  through  a  long  succession 
of  generations,  even  to  the  time  we  live  in.  If  it  should 
ever  be  totally  extinguished,  the  loss  I  fear  will  be  great.  It 
is  this  which  has  given  its  character  to  modern  Europe.  It 
is  this  which  has  distinguished  it  under  all  its  forms  of 
government,  and  distinguished  it  to  its  advantage,  from  the 
states  of  Asia,  and  possibly  from  those  states  which  flourished 
in  the  most  brilliant  periods  of  the  antique  world.  It  was 
this,  which,  without  confounding  ranks,  had  produced  a 
noble  equality,  and  handed  it  down  through  all  the  gra- 
dations of  social  life.  It  was  this  opinion  which  mitigated 
kings  into  companions,  and  raised  private  men  to  be  fellows 
with  kings.  Without  force,  or  opposition,  it  subdued  the 
fierceness  of  pride  and  power;  it  obliged  sovereigns  to 
submit  to  the  soft  collar  of  social  esteem,  compelled  stern 
authority  to  submit  to  elegance,  and  gave  a  domination 
vanquisher  of  laws,  to  be  subdued  by  manners. 

But  now  all  is  to  be  changed.  All  the  pleasing  illusions, 
which  made  power  gentle,  and  obedience  liberal,  which 
harmonized  the  different  shades  of  life,  and  which,  by  a 
bland  assimilation,  incorporated  into  politics  the  sentiments 
which  beautify  and  soften  private  society,  are  to  be  dissolved 
by  this  new  conquering  empire  of  light  and  reason.  All  the 
decent  drapery  of  life  is  to  be  rudely  torn  off.  All  the  super- 
added ideas,  furnished  from  the  wardrobe  of  a  moral  imagi- 
nation, which  the  heart  owns,  and  the  understanding  ratifies, 
as  necessary  to  cover  the  defects  of  our  naked  shivering 
nature,  and  to  raise  it  to  dignity  in  our  own  estimation, 
are  to  be  exploded  as  a  ridiculous,  absurd,  and  antiquated 
fashion. 

On  this  scheme  of  things,  a  king  is  but  a  man ;  a  queen  is 
but  a  woman;  a  woman  is  but  an  animal;  and  an  animal 
not  of  the  highest  order.  All  homage  paid  to  the  sex  in 
general  as  such,  and  without  distinct  views,  is  to  be  regarded 


DOCTRINE   OF  'PUBLIC  AFFECTIONS'  9 1 

as  romance  and  folly.  Regicide,  and  parricide,  and  sacrilege, 
are  but  fictions  of  superstition,  corrupting  jurisprudence  by 
destroying  its  simplicity.  The  murder  of  a  king,  or  a  queen, 
or  a  bishop,  or  a  father,  are  only  common  homicide ;  and  if 
the  people  are  by  any  chance,  or  in  any  way  gainers  by  it,  a 
sort  of  homicide  much  the  most  pardonable,  and  into  which 
we  ought  not  to  make  too  severe  a  scrutiny. 
^^A-  On  the  scheme  of  this  barbarous  philosophy,  which  is  the 
"(oflfspring  of  cold  hearts  and  muddy  understandings,  and 
which  is  as  void  of  soHd  wisdom,  as  it  is  destitute  of  all 
taste  and  elegance,  laws  are  to  be  supported  only  by  their 
own  terrors,  and  by  the  concern  which  each  individual  may 
find  in  them  from  his  own  private  speculations,  or  can  spare 
to  them  from  his  own  private  interests.  In  the  groves  of 
iheir  academy,  at  the  end  of  every  visto,  you  see  nothing  but 
the  gallows.  Nothing  is  left  which  engages  the  aflfections 
on  the  part  of  the  commonwealth.  On  the  principles  of  this 
mechanic  philosophy,  our  institutions  can  never  be  embodied, 
if  I  may  use  the  expression,  in  persons ;  so  as  to  create  in  us 
love,  veneration,  admiration,  or  attachment.  But  that  sort 
of  reason  which  banishes  the  affections  is  incapable  of  filling 
their  place.  These  public  affections,  combined  with  man- 
ners, are  required  sometimes  as  supplements,  sometimes  as 
correctives,  always  as  aids  to  law.  The  precept  given  by  a 
wise  man,  as  well  as  a  great  critic,  for  the  construction  of 
poems,  is  equally  true  as  to  states.  Non  satis  est  pulchra  esse 
poemata,  dulcia  sunto.  There  ought  to  be  a  system  of  man- 
ners in  every  nation  which  a  well-formed  mind  would  be 
disposed  to  rehsh.  To  make  us  love  our  country,  our 
country  ought  to  be  lovely. 

But  power,  of  some  kind  or  other,  will  survive  the  shock 
in  which  manners  and  opinions  perish ;  and  it  will  find  other 
and  worse  means  for  its  .support.  The  usurpation  which,  in 
order  to  subvert  antient  institutions,  has  destroyed  antient 


92  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

principles,  will  hold  power  by  arts  similar  to  those  by  which 
it  has  acquired  it.  When  the  old  feudal  and  chivalrous 
spirit  of  Fealty,  which,  by  freeing  kings  from  fear,  freed  both 
kings  and  subjects  from  the  precautions  of  tyranny,  shall  be 
extinct  in  the  minds  of  men,  plots  and  assassinations  will  be 
anticipated  by  preventive  murder  and  preventive  confiscation, 
and  that  long  roll  of  grim  and  bloody  maxims,  which  form 
the  political  code  of  all  power,  not  standing  on  its  own 
honour,  and  the  honour  of  those  who  are  to  obey  it.  Kings 
will  be  tyrants  from  policy  when  subjects  are  rebels  from 
principle. 

When  antient  opinions  and  rules  of  life  are  taken  away, 
the  loss  cannot  possibly  be  estimated.  From  that  moment 
we  have  no  compass  to  govern  us;  nor  can  we  know  dis- 
tinctly to  what  port  we  steer.  Europe  undoubtedly,  taken  in 
a  mass,  was  in  a  flourishing  condition  the  day  on  which  your 
Revolution  was  compleated.  How  much  of  that  prosperous 
state  was  owing  to  the  spirit  of  our  old  manners  and 
opinions  is  not  easy  to  say ;  but  as  such  causes  cannot*  be 
indifferent  in  their  operation,  we  must  presume,  that,  on  the 
whole,  their  operation  was  beneficial. 

We  are  but  too  apt  to  consider  things  in  the  state  in  which 
we  find  them,  without  sufiiciently  adverting  to  the  causes  by 
which  they  have  been  produced,  and  possibly  may  be  upheld. 
Nothing  is  more  certain,  than  that  our  manners,  our  civi- 
lization, and  all  the  good  things  which  are  connected  with 
manners,  and  with  civilization,  have,  in  this  European  world 
of  ours,  depended  for  ages  upon  two  principles;  and  were 
indeed  the  result  of  both  combined ;  1  mean  the  spirit  of  a 
gentleman,  and  the  spirit  of  religion.  The  nobility  and  the 
clergy,  the  one  by  profession,  the  other  by  patronage,  kept 
learning  in  existence,  even  in  the  midst  of  arms  and  con- 
fusions, and  whilst  governments  were  rather  in  their  causes 
than    formed.     Learning   paid   back  what  it   received  to 


MANNERS  AND   CIVILIZATION.  93 

nobility  and  to  priesthood ;  and  paid  it  with  usury,  by 
enlarging  their  ideas,  and  by  furnishing  their  minds.  Happy 
if  they  had  all  continued  to  know  their  indissoluble  union, 
and  their  proper  place !  Happy  if  learning,  not  debauched 
by  ambition,  had  been  satisfied  to  continue  the  instructor, 
and  not  aspired  to  be  the  master!  Along  with  its  natural 
protectors  and  guardians,  learning  will  be  cast  into  the  mire, 
and  trodden  down  under  the  hoofs  of  a  swinish  multitude. [*] 

If,  as  I  suspect,  modern  letters  owe  more  than  they  are 
always  willing  to  own  to  antient  manners,  so  do  other 
interests  which  we  value  full  as  much  as  they  are  worth. 
Even  commerce,  and  trade,  and  manufacture,  the  gods  of 
our  oeconomical  politicians,  are  themselves  perhaps  but 
creatures;  are  themselves  but  effects,  which,  as  first  causes, 
we  choose  to  worship.  They  certainly  grew  under  the  same 
shade  in  which  learning  flourished.  They  too  may  decay 
with  their  natural  protecting  principles.  With  you,  for  the 
present  at  least,  they  all  threaten  to  disappear  together. 
Where  trade  and  manufactures  are  wanting  to  a  people,  and 
the  spirit  of  nobility  and  religion  remains,  sentiment  supplies, 
and  not  always  ill  supplies  their  place ;  but  if  commerce  and 
the  arts  should  be  lost  in  an  experiment  to  try  how  well  a 
state  may  stand  without  these  old  fundamental  principles, 
what  sort  of  a  thing  must  be  a  nation  of  gross,  stupid, 
ferocious,  and  at  the  same  time,  poor  and  sordid  barbarians, 
destitute  of  religion,  honour,  or  manly  pride,  possessing 
nothing  at  present,  and  hoping  for  nothing  hereafter  ? 

I  wish  you  may  not  be  going  fast,  and  by  the  shortest  cut, 
to  that  horrible  and  disgustful  situation.  Already  there 
appears  a  poverty  of  conception,  a  coarseness  and  vulgarity 
in  all  the  proceedings  of  the   assembly  and   of  all   their 

[*  See  the  fate  of  Bailly  and  Condorcet,  supposed  to  be  here  particularly 
alluded  to.  Compare  the  circumstances  of  the  trial  and  execution  of  the 
former  with  this  prediction. "] 


94  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

instructors.  Their  liberty  is  not  liberal.  Their  science  is 
presumptuous  ignorance.  Their  humanity  is  savage  and 
brutal. 

It  is  not  clear,  whether  in  England  we  learned  those  grand 
and  decorous  principles,  and  manners,  of  which  considerable 
traces  yet  remain,  from  you,  or  whether  you  took  them  from 
us.  But  to  you,  I  think,  we  trace  them  best'  You  seem  to 
me  to  be  'genh's  incunabula  nosirce.'  France  has  always 
more  or  less  influenced  manners  in  England;  and  when 
your  fountain  is  choaked  up  and  polluted,  the  stream  will 
not  run  long,  or  not  run  clear  with  us,  or  perhaps  with 
any  nation.  This  gives  all  Europe,  in  my  opinion,  but 
too  close  and  connected  a  concern  in  what  is  done  in 
France.  Excuse  me,  therefore,  if  I  have  dwelt  too  long 
on  the  atrocious  spectacle  of  the  sixth  of  October  1789, 
or  have  given  too  much  scope  to  the  reflections  which  have 
arisen  in  my  mind  on  occasion  of  the  most  important  of  all 
revolutions,  which  may  be  dated  from  that  day,  I  mean  a 
revolution  in  sentiments,  manners,  and  moral  opinions.  As 
things  now  stand,  with  every  thing  respectable  destroyed 
without  us,  and  an  attempt  to  destroy  within  us  every 
principle  of  respect,  one  is  almost  forced  to  apologize  for 
harbouring  the  common  feelings  of  men. 

Why  do  I  feel  so  differently  from  the  Reverend  Dr.  Price, 
and  those  of  his  lay  flock,  who  will  choose  to  adopt  the 
sentiments  of  his  discourse?  For  this  plain  reason — be- 
cause  it  is  natural  I  should;  because  we  are  so  made  as 
to  be  affected  at  such  spectacles  with  melancholy  sentiments 
upon  the  unstable  condition  of  mortal  prosperity,  and  the 
tremendous  uncertainty  of  human  greatness;  because  in 
those  natural  feelings  we  learn  great  lessons;  because  in 
events  like  these  our  passions  instruct  our  reason;  because 
when  kings  are  hurled  from  their  thrones  by  the  Supreme 
Director  of  this  great  drama,  and  become  the  objects  of 


MORAL    VALUE  OF   THE  FEELINGS.  95 

insult  to  the  base,  and  of  pity  to  the  good,  we  behold 
such  disasters  in  the  moral,  as  we  should  behold  a  miracle  in 
the  physical  order  of  things.  We  are  alarmed  into  reflexion ; 
our  minds  (as  it  has  long  since  been  observed)  are  purified 
by  terror  and  pity ;  our  weak  unthinking  pride  is  humbled, 
under  the  dispensations  of  a  mysterious  wisdom.  Some 
tears  might  be  drawn  from  me,  if  such  a  spectacle  were 
exhibited  on  the  stage.  I  should  be  truly  ashamed  of 
finding  in  myself  that  superficial,  theatric  sense  of  painted 
distress,  whilst  I  could  exult  over  it  in  real  life.  With  such  a 
perverted  mind,  I  could  never  venture  to  shew  my  face  at  a 
tragedy.  People  would  think  the  tears  that  Garrick  formerly, 
or  that  Siddons  not  long  since,  have  extorted  from  me,  were 
the  tears  of  hypocrisy ;  I  should  know  them  to  be  the  tears 
of  folly. 

Indeed  the  theatre  is  a  better  school  of  moral  sentiments 
than  churches,  where  the  feelings  of  humanity  are  thus 
outraged.  Poets,  who  have  to  deal  with  an  audience  not  yet 
graduated  in  the  school  of  the  rights  of  men,  and  who  must 
apply  themselves  to  the  moral  constitution  of  the  heart, 
would  not  dare  to  produce  such  a  triumph  as  a  matter  of 
exultation.  There,  where  men  follow  their  natural  impulses, 
they  would  not  bear  the  odious  maxims  of  a  Machiavelian 
policy,  whether  applied  to  the  attainment  of  monarchical  or 
democratic  tyranny.  They  would  reject  them  on  the  modern, 
as  they  once  did  on  the  antient  stage;  where  they  could  not 
bear  even  the  hypothetical  proposition  of  such  wickedness  in 
the  mouth  of  a  personated  tyrant,  though  suitable  to  the 
character  he  sustained.  No  theatric  audience  in  Athens 
would  bear  what  has  been  borne,  in  the  midst  of  the  real 
tragedy  of  this  triumphal  day;  a  principal  actor  weighing,  as 
it  were  in  scales  hung  in  a  shop  of  horrors,  so  much  actual 
crime  against  so  much  contingent  advantage,  and  after  put- 
ting in  and  out  weights,  declaring  that  the  balance  was  on 


g6  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

the  side  of  the  advantages.  They  would  not  bear  to  see  the 
crimes  of  new  democracy  posted  as  in  a  ledger  against  the 
crimes  of  old  despotism,  and  the  book-keepers  of  politics 
finding  democracy  still  in  debt,  but  by  no  means  unable  or 
unwilling  to  pay  the  balance.  In  the  theatre,  the  first 
intuitive  glance,  without  any  elaborate  process  of  reasoning, 
would  shew,  that  this  method  of  political  computation  would 
justify  every  extent  of  crime.  They  would  see,  that  on  these 
principles,  even  where  the  very  worst  acts  were  not  per- 
petrated, it  was  owing  rather  to  the  fortune  of  the  conspi- 
rators than  to  their  parsimony  in  the  expenditure  of  treachery 
and  blood.  They  would  soon  see,  that  criminal  means  once 
tolerated  are  soon  preferred.  They  present  a  shorter  cut  to 
the  object  than  through  the  highway  of  the  moral  virtues. 
Justifying  perfidy  and  murder  for  public  benefit,  public 
benefit  would  soon  become  the  pretext,  and  perfidy  and 
murder  the  end;  until  rapacity,  malice,  revenge,  and  fear 
more  dreadful  than  revenge,  could  satiate  their  insatiable 
appetites.  Such  must  be  the  consequences  of  losing  in  the 
splendour  of  these  triumphs  of  the  rights  of  men,  all  natural 
sense  of  wrong  and  right.. 


But  the  Reverend  Pastor  exults  in  this  'leading  in 
triumph/  because,  truly,  Louis  the  XVIth  was  '  an  arbitrary 
monarch ; '  that  is,  in  other  words,  neither  more  nor  less, 
than  because  he  was  Louis  the  XVIth,  and  because  he  had 
the  misfortune  to  be  born  king  of  France,  with  the  preroga- 
tives of  which,  a  long  line  of  ancestors,  and  a  long  acquies- 
cence of  the  people,  without  any  act  of  his,  had  put  him  in 
possession.  A  misfortune  it  has  indeed  turned  out  to  him, 
that  he  was  born'  king  of  France.  But  misfortune  is  not 
crime,  nor  is  indiscretion  always  the  greatest  guilt.  I  shall 
never  think  that  a  prince,  the  acts  of  whose  whole  reign  were 
a  series  of  concessions  to  his  subjects,  who  was  willing  to 


LOUIS  XVI.   NO   TYRANT.  97 

relax  his  authority,  to  remit  his  prerogatives,  to  call  his 
people  to  a  share  of  freedom,  not  known,  perhaps  not  de- 
sired, by  their  ancestors ;  such  a  prince,  though  he  should 
be  subject  to  the  common  frailties  attached  to  men  and  to 
princes,  though  he  should  have  once  thought  it  necessary  to 
provide  force  against  the  desperate  designs  manifestly  carry- 
ing on  against  his  person,  and  the  remnants  of  his  authority ; 
though  all  this  should  be  taken  into  consideration,  I  shall  be 
led  with  great  difficulty  to  think  he  deserves  the  cruel  and 
insulting  triumph  of  Paris,  and  of  Dr.  Price.  I  tremble  for  the 
cause  of  liberty,  from  such  an  example  to  kings.  I  tremble 
for  the  cause  of  humanity,  in  the  unpunished  outrages  of  the 
most  wicked  of  mankind.  But  there  are  some  people  of  that 
low  and  degenerate  fashion  of  mind,  that  they  look  up  with 
a  sort  of  complacent  awe  and  admiration  to  kings,  who 
know  to  keep  firm  in  their  seat,  to  hold  a  strict  hand  over 
their  subjects,  to  assert  their  prerogative,  and  by  the 
awakened  vigilance  of  a  severe  despotism,  to  guard  against 
the  very  first  approaches  of  freedom.  Against  such  as  these 
they  never  elevate  their  voice.  Deserters  from  principle, 
listed  with  fortune,  they  never  see  any  good  in  suffering 
virtue,  nor  any  crime  in  prosperous  usurpation. 

If  it  could  have  been  made  clear  to  me,  that  the  king  and 
queen  of  France  (those  I  mean  who  were  such  before  the 
triumph)  were  inexorable  and  cruel  tyrants,  that  they  had 
formed  a  deliberate  scheme  for  massacring  the  National  As- 
sembly (I  think  I  have  seen  something  like  the  latter 
insinuated  in  certain  publications)  I  should  think  their  cap- 
tivity just.  If  this  be  true,  much  more  ought  to  have  been 
done,  but  done,  in  my  opinion,  in  another  manner.  The 
punishment  of  real  tyrants  is  a  noble  and  awful  act  of  justice; 
and  it  has  with  truth  been  said  to  be  consolatory  to  the 
human  mind.  But  if  I  were  to  punish  a  wicked  king,  I 
should  regard  the  dignity  in  avenging  the  crime.     Justice  is 

VOL.   u.  H 


98  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

grave  and  decorous,  and  in  its  punishments  rather  seems  to 
submit  to  a  necessity,  than  to  make  a  choice.  Had  Nero, 
or  Agrippina,  or  Louis  the  Eleventh,  or  Charles  the  Ninth, 
been  the  subject;  if  Charles  the  Twelfth  of  Sweden,  after 
the  murder  of  Patkul,  or  his  predecessor  Christina,  after  the 
murder  of  Monaldeschi,  had  fallen  into  your  hands,  Sir,  or 
into  mine,  I  am  sure  our  conduct  would  have  been  different. 

If  the  French  King,  or  King  of  the  French,  (or  by  what- 
ever name  he  is  known  in  the  new  vocabulary  of  your  con- 
stitution) has  in  his  own  person,  and  that  of  his  Queen, 
really  deserved  these  unavowed  but  unavenged  murderous 
attempts,  and  those  subsequent  indignities  more  cruel  than 
murder,  such  a  person  would  ill  deserve  even  that  subordin- 
ate executory  trust,  which  I  understand  is  to  be  placed  in 
him ;  nor  is  he  fit  to  be  called  chief  of  a  nation  which  he  has 
outraged  and  oppressed.  A  worse  choice  for  such  an  office 
in  a  new  commonwealth,  than  that  of  a  deposed  tyrant, 
could  not  possibly  be  made.  But  to  degrade  and  insult  a 
man  as  the  worst  of  criminals,  and  afterwards  to  trust  him  in 
your  highest  concerns,  as  a  faithful,  honest,  and  zealous 
servant,  is  not  consistent  in  reasoning,  nor  prudent  in 
policy,  nor  safe  in  practice.  Those  who  could  make  such 
an  appointment  must  be  guilty  of  a  more  flagrant  breach  of 
trust  than  any  they  have  yet  committed  against  the  people. 
As  this  is  the  only  crime  in  which  your  leading  politicians 
could  have  acted  inconsistently,  I  conclude  that  there  is 
no  sort  of  ground  for  these  horrid  insinuations.  I  think  no 
better  of  all  the  other  calumnies. 

In  England,  we  give  no  credit  to  them.  We  are  generous 
enemies :  we  are  faithful  allies.  We  spurn  from  us  with 
disgust  and  indignation  the  slanders  of  those  who  bring  us 
their  anecdotes  with  the  attestation  of  the  flower-de-luce  on 
their  shoulder.  We  have  Lord  George  Gordon  fast  in  New- 
gate ;  and  neither  his  being  a  public  proselyte  to  Judaism, 


ENGLISH  POLITICAL  SENTIMENTS.  99 

nor  his  having,  in  his  zeal  against  Catholic  priests  and  all 
sort  of  ecclesiastics,  raised  a  mob  (excuse  the  term,  it  is  still 
in  use  here)  which  pulled  down  all  our  prisons,  have  pre- 
served to  him  a  liberty,  of  which  he  did  not  render  himself 
worthy  by  a  virtuous  use  of  it.  We  have  rebuilt  Newgate, 
and  tenanted  the  mansion.  We  have  prisons  almost  as 
strong  as  the  Bastile,  for  those  who  dare  to  libel  the  queens 
of  France.  In  this  spiritual  retreat,  let  the  noble  libeller  re- 
main. Let  him  there  meditate  on  his  Thalmud,  until  he 
learns  a  conduct  more  becoming  his  birth  and  parts,  and  not 
so  disgraceful  to  the  antient  religion  to  which  he  has  become 
a  proselyte;  or  until  some  persons  from  your  side  of  the 
water,  to  please  your  new  Hebrew  brethren,  shall  ransom 
him.  He  may  then  be  enabled  to  purchase,  with  the  old 
hoards  of  the  synagogue,  and  a  very  small  poundage  on  the 
long  compound  interest  of  the  thirty  pieces  of  silver  (Dr. 
Price  has  shewn  us  what  miracles  compound  interest  will 
perform  in  1790  years)  the  lands  which  are  lately  discovered  to 
have  been  usurped  by  the  Galilean  church.  Send  us  your 
popish  Archbishop  of  Paris,  and  we  will  send  you  our  pro- 
testant  Rabbin.  We  shall  treat  the  person  you  send  us  in 
exchange  like  a  gentleman  and  an  honest  man,  as  he  is ;  but 
pray  let  him  bring  with  him  the  fund  of  his  hospitality, 
bounty,  and  charity ;  and,  depend  upon  it,  we  shall  never  con- 
fiscate a  shilling  of  that  honourable  and  pious  fund,  nor  think 
of  enriching  the  treasury  with  the  spoils  of  the  poor-box. 

To  tell  you  the  truth,  my  dear  Sir,  I  think  the  honour  of 
our  nation  to  be  somewhat  concerned  in  the  disclaimer  of 
the  proceedings  of  this  society  of  the  Old  Jewry  and  the 
London  Tavern,  I  have  no  man's  proxy.  I  speak  only 
from  myself;  when  I  disclaim,  as  I  do  with  all  possible 
earnestness,  all  communion  with  the  actors  in  that  triumph, 
or  with  the  admirers  of  it.     When  I  assert  anything  else,  as 

H   2 


lOO  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

concerning  the  people  of  England,  I  speak  from  observation, 
not  from  authority ;  but  I  speak  from  the  experience  I  have 
had  in  a  pretty  extensive  and  mixed  communication  with  the 
inhabitants  of  this  kingdom,  of  all  descriptions  and  ranks, 
and  after  a  course  of  attentive  observation,  began  early  in 
life,  and  continued  for  near  forty  years.  I  have  often  been 
astonished,  considering  that  we  are  divided  from  you  but  by 
I  slender  dyke  of  about  twenty-four  miles,  and  that  the 
mutual  intercourse  between  the  two  countries  has  lately  been 
Very  great,  to  find  how  little  you  seem  to  know  of  us.  I  suspect 
that  this  is  owing  to  your  forming  a  judgment  of  this  nation 
from  certain  publications,  which  do  very  erroneously,  if  they 
do  at  all,  represent  the  opinions  and  dispositions  generally  pre- 
valent in  England.  The  vanity,  restlessness,  petulance,  and 
spirit  of  intrigue  of  several  petty  cabals,  who  attempt  to  hide 
<heir  total  want  of  consequence  in  bustle  and  noise,  and 
puffing,  and  mutual  quotation  of  each  other,  makes  you 
imagine  that  our  contemptuous  neglect  of  their  abilities  is  a 
mark  of  general  acquiescence  in  their  opinions.  No  such 
thing,  I  assure  you.  Because  half  a  dozen  grasshoppers 
jnder  a  fern  make  the  field  ring  with  their  importunate 
chink,  whilst  thousands  of  great  cattle,  reposed  beneath  the 
shadow  of  the  British  oak,  chew  the  cud  and  are  silent,  pray 
do  not  imagine,  that  those  who  make  the  noise  are  the  only 
inhabitants  of  the  field ;  that,  of  course,  they  are  many  in 
number ;  or  that,  after  all,  they  are  other  than  the  little 
shrivelled,  meagre,  hopping,  though  loud  and  troublesome 
insects  of  the  hour. 

I  almost  venture  to  affinn,  that  not  one  in  a  hundred 
amongst  us  pa:rticipates  in  the  '  triumph '  of  the  Revolution 
Society.  If  the  king  and  queen  of  France,  and  their  child- 
ren, were  to  fall  into  our  hands  by  the  chance  of  war,  in 
the  most  acrimonious  of  all  hostilities  (I  deprecate  such  an 
event,  I  deprecate  such  hostility)  they  would  be  treated  with 


ENGLISHMEN  NO  REVOLUTIONISTS.  1 01 

another  sort  of  triumphal  entry  into  London.  We  formerly 
have  had  a  kmg  of  France  in  that  situation ;  you  have  read 
how  he  was  treated  by  the  victor  in  the  field ;  and  in  what 
manner  he  was  afterwards  received  in  England.  Four 
hundred  years  have  gone  over  us ;  but  I  believe  we  are  not 
materially  changed  since  that  period.  Thanks  to  our  sullen 
resistance  to  innovation,  thanks  to  the  cold  sluggishness  of 
our  national  character,  we  still  bear  the  stamp  of  our  fore- 
fathers. We  have  not,  as  I  conceive,  lost  the  generosity 
and  dignity  of  thinking  of  the  fourteenth  century ;  nor  as  yet 
have  we  subtilized  ourselves  into  savages.  We  are  not  the 
converts  of  Rousseau ;  we  are  not  the  disciples  of  Voltaire  ; 
Helvetius  has  made  no  progress  amongst  us.  Atheists  are 
not  our  preachers;  madmen  are  not  our  lawgivers.  We 
know  that  we  have  made  no  discoveries,  and  we  think  that 
no  discoveries  are  to  be  made,  in  morality ;  nor  many  in  the 
great  principles  of  government,  nor  in  the  ideas  of  liberty, 
which  were  understood  long  before  we  were  born,  altogether 
as  well  as  they  will  be  after  the  grave  has  heaped  its  mould 
upon  our  presumption,  and  the  silent  tomb  shall  have  im- 
posed its  law  on  our  pert  loquacity.  In  England  we  have 
not  yet  been  completely  embowelled  of  our  natural  entrails ; 
we  still  feel  within  us,  and  we  cherish  and  cultivate,  those 
inbred  sentiments  which  are  the  faithful  guardians,  the  active 
monitors  of  our  duty,  the  true  supporters  of  all  liberal  and 
manly  morals.  /We  have  not  been  drawn  and  trussed,^ 
in  order  that  we  may  be  filled,  like  stuffed  birds  in  a 
museum,  with  chaff  and  rags,  and  paltry  blurred  shreds  oi 
paper  about  the  rights  of  man.  We  preserve  the  whole  of 
our  feelings  still  native  and  entire,  unsophisticated  by  pedan- 
try and  infidelity.  We  have  real  hearts  of  flesh  and  blood 
beating  in  our  bosoms.  We  fear  God ;  we  look  up  with  awe 
to  kings  ;  with  affection  to  parliaments ;  with  duty  to  magis- 
trates;   with  reverence    to   priests;    and  with  respect   to 


102  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

inobility*.  Why?  Because  when  such  ideas  are  brought 
before  our  minds,  it  is  natural  to  be  so  affected ;  because  all 
other  feelings  are  false  and  spurious,  and  tend  to  corrupt  our 
minds,  to  vitiate  our  primary  morals,  to  render  us  unfit  for 
rational  liberty ;  and  by  teaching  us  a  servile,  licentious,  and 
abandoned  insolence,  to  be  our  low  sport  for  a  few  holidays, 
to  make  us  perfectly  fit  for,  and  justly  deserving  of  slavery, 
through  the  whole  course  of  our  lives. 

You  see,  Sir,  that  in  this  enlightened  age  I  am  bold 
enough  to  confess,  that  we  are  generally  men  of  untaught 
feelings ;  that  instead  of  casting  away  all  our  old  prejudices, 
we  cherish  them  to  a  very  considerable  degree,  and,  to  take 
more  shame  to  ourselves,  we  cherish  them  because  they  are 
prejudices;  and  the  longer  they  have  lasted,  and  the  more 
generally  they  have  prevailed,  the  more  we  cherish  them. 
We  are  afraid  to  put  men  to  live  and  trade  each  on  his  own 
private  stock  of  reason ;  because  we  suspect  that  this  stock 
in  each  man  is  small,  and  that  the  individuals  would  do 
better  to  avail  themselves  of  the  general  bank  and  capital  of 
nations,  and  of  ages.  Many  of  our  men  of  speculation,  in- 
stead of  exploding  general  prejudices,  employ  their  sagacity 
to  discover  the  latent  wisdom  which  prevails  in  them.  If 
they  find  what  they  seek,  (and  they  seldom  fail)  they  think  it 
more  wise  to  continue  the  prejudice,  with  the  reason  in- 
volved, than  to  cast  away  the  coat  of  prejudice,  and  to  leave 
nothing  but  the  naked  reason;  because  prejudice,  with  its 
reason,  has  a  motive  to  give  action  to  that  reason,  and  an 

*  The  English  are,  I  conceive,  misrepresented  in  a  Letter  published 
in  one  of  the  papers,  by  a  gentleman  thought  to  be  a  dissenting  minis- 
ter.— When  writing  to  Dr.  Price,  of  the  spirit  which  prevails  at  Paris,  he 
says,  '  The  spirit  of  the  people  in  this  place  has  abolished  all  the  proud 
distinctions  which  the  Ung  and  nobles  had  usurped  in  their  minds; 
whether  they  talk  of  the  king,  the  noble,  or  the  priest,  their  whole  lan- 
guage is  that  of  the  most  enlightened  and  liberal  amongst  the  English.' 
If  this  gentleman  means  to  confine  the  terms  enlightened  and  liberal  to 
one  set  of  men  in  England,  it  may  be  true.     It  is  not  generally  so. 


THE  FRENCH  POLITICIANS.  I03 

affection  which  will  give  it  permanence.  Prejudice  is  of 
ready  application  in  the  emergency;  it  previously  engages 
the  mind  in  a  steady  course  of  wisdom  and  virtue,  and  does 
not  leave  the  man  hesitating  in  the  moment  of  decision, 
sceptical,  puzzled,  and  unresolved.  Prejudice  renders  a 
man's  virtue  his  habit ;  and  not  a  series  of  unconnected  acts. 
Through  just  prejudice,  his  duty  becomes  a  part  of  his 
nature. 

Your  literary  men,  and  your  politicians,  and  so  do  the 
whole  clan  of  the  enlightened  among  us,  essentially  differ  in 
these  points.  They  have  no  respect  for  the  wisdom  of 
others ;  but  they  pay  it  off  by  a  very  full  measure  of  confi- 
dence in  their  own.  With  them  it  is  a  sufficient  motive  to 
destroy  an  old  scheme  of  things,  because  it  is  an  old  one. 
As  to  the  new,  they  are  in  no  sort  of  fear  with  regard  to  the 
duration  of  a  building  run  up  in  haste ;  because  duration  is 
no  object  to  those  who  think  little  or  nothing  has  been  done 
before  their  time,  and  who  place  all  their  hopes  in  discovery. 
They  conceive,  very  systematically,  that  all  things  which  give 
perpetuity  are  mischievous,  and  therefore  they  are  at  inex- 
piable war  with  all  establishments.  They  think  that  govern- 
ment may  vary  like  modes  of  dress,  and  with  as  little  ill 
effect.  That  there  needs  no  principle  of  attachment,  except 
a  sense  of  present  conveniency,  to  any  constitution  of  the 
state.  They  always  speak  as  if  they  were  of  opinion  that 
there  is  a  singular  species  of  compact  between  them  and 
their  magistrates,  which  binds  the  magistrate,  but  which  has 
nothing  reciprocal  in  it,  but  that  the  majesty  of  the  people 
has  a  right  to  dissolve  it  without  any  reason,  but  its  will. 
Their  attachment  to  their  country  itself,  is  only  so  far  as  it 
agrees  with  some  of  their  fleeting  projects ;  it  begins  and 
ends  with  that  scheme  of  polity  which  falls  in  with  their 
momentary  opinion. 

These  doctrines,  or  rather  sentiments,  seem  prevalent  with 


104  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

your  new  statesmen.     But  they  are  wholly  different  from' 
those  on  which  we  have  always  acted  in  this  country. 

I  HEAR  it  is  sometimes  given  out  in  France,  that  what 
is  doing  among  you  is  after  the  example  of  England.  I  beg 
leave  to  affirm,  that  scarcely  any  thing  done  with  you  has 
originated  from  the  practice  or  the  prevalent  opinions  of 
this  people,  either  in  the  act  or  in  the  spirit  of  the  proceed- 
ing. Let  me  add,  that  we  are  as  unwilling  to  learn  these 
lessons  from  France,  as  we  are  sure  that  we  never  taught 
them  to  that  nation.  The  cabals  here  who  take  a  sort  of 
share  in  your  transactions  as  yet  consist  but  of  an  handful  of 
people.  If  unfortunately  by  their  intrigues,  their  sermons, 
their  publications,  and  by  a  confidence  derived  from  an 
expected  union  with  the  counsels  and  forces  of  the  French 
nation,  they  should  draw  considerable  numbers  into  their 
faction,  and  in  consequence  should  seriously  attempt  any 
thing  here  in  imitation  of  what  has  been  done  with  you,  the 
event,  I  dare  venture  to  prophesy,  will  be,  that,  with  some 
trouble  to  their  country,  they  will  soon  accomplish  their  own 
destruction.  This  people  refused  to  change  their  law  in 
remote  ages  from  respect  to  the  infallibility  of  popes ;  and 
they  will  not  now  alter  it  from  a  pious  implicit  faith  in  the 
dogmatism  of  philosophers;  though  the  former  was  armed 
with  the  anathema  and  crusade,  and  though  the  latter  should 
act  with  the  libel  and  the  lamp-iron. 

Formerly  your  affairs  were  your  own  concern  only.  We 
felt  for  them  as  men ;  but  we  kept  aloof  from  them,  because 
we  were  not  citizens  of  France.  But  when  we  see  the  model 
held  up  to  ourselves,  we  must  feel  as  Englishmen,  and  feel- 
ing, we  must  provide  as  Englishmen.  Your  affairs,  in  spite 
of  us,  are  made  a  part  of  our  interest;  so  far  at  least  as 
to  keep  at  a  distance  your  panacea,  or  your  plague.  If 
it  be  a  panacea,  we  do  not  want  it.    We  know  the  con- 


THE  'PHILOSOPHERS  *  I05 

sequences  of  unnecessary  physic.  If  it  be  a  plague,  it  is 
such  a  plague,  that  the  precautions  of  the  most  severe  quaran- 
tine ought  to  be  established  against  it. 

I  HEAR  on  all  hands  that  a  cabal,  calling  itself  philosophic, 
receives  the  glory  of  many  of  the  late  proceedings ;  and  that 
their  opinions  and  systems  are  the  true  actuating  spirit  of  the 
whole  of  them.  I  have  heard  of  no  party  in  England,  literary 
or  political,  at  any  time,  known  by  such  a  description.  It  is 
not  with  you  composed  of  those  men,  is  it  ?  whom  the  vulgar, 
in  their  blunt,  homely  style,  commonly  call  Atheists  and  Infi- 
dels ?  If  it  be,  I  admit  that  we  too  have  had  writers  of  that 
description,  who  made  some  noise  in  their  day.  At  present 
they  repose  in  lasting  oblivion.  Who,  born  within  the  last 
forty  years,  has  read  one  word  of  Collins,  and  Toland,  and 
Tindal,  and  Chubb,  and  ]Morgan,  and  that  whole  race  who 
called  themselves  Freethinkers?  Who  now  reads  Boling- 
broke  ?  Who  ever  read  him  through  ?  Ask  the  booksellers 
of  London  what  is  become  of  all  these  lights  of  the  world. 
In  as  few  years  their  few  successors  will  go  to  the  family 
vault  of  '  all  the  Capulets.'  But  whatever  they  were,  or  are, 
with  us,  they  were  and  are  wholly  unconnected  individuals. 
With  us  they  kept  the  common  nature  of  their  kind,  and 
were  not  gregarious.  They  never  acted  in  corps,  nor  were 
known  as  a  faction  in  the  state,  nor  presumed  to  influence, 
in  that  name  or  character,  or  for  the  purposes  of  such  a 
faction,  on  any  of  our  public  concerns.  Whether  they  ought 
so  to  exist,  and  so  be  permitted  to  act,  is  another  question. 
As  such  cabals  have  not  existed  in  England,  so  neither  has 
the  spirit  of  them  had  any  influence  in  establishing  the 
original  frame  of  our  constitution,  or  in  any  one  of  the 
several  reparations  and  improvements  it  has  undergone. 
The  whole  has  been  done  under  the  auspices,  and  is  con- 
firmed by  the  sanctions  of  religion  and  piety.     The  whole 


I05  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

has  emanated  from  the  simplicity  of  our  national  character, 
and  from  a  sort  of  native  plainness  and  directness  of  under- 
standing, which  for  a  long  time  characterized  those  men  who 
have  successively  obtained  authority  amongst  us.  This  dis- 
position still  remains,  at  least  in  the  great  body  of  the 
people. 

We  know,  and  what  is  better,  we  feel  inwardly,  that  religion 
is  the  basis  of  civil  society,  and  the  source  of  all  good  and 
of  all  comfort*.  In  England  we  are  so  convinced  of  this, 
that  there  is  no  rust  of  superstition,  mth  which  the  accu- 
mulated absurdity  of  the  human  mind  might  have  crusted 
it  over  in  the  course  of  ages,  that  ninety-nine  in  an  hundred 
of  the  people  of  England  would  not  prefer  to  impiety.  We 
shall  never  be  such  fools  as  to  call  in  an  enemy  to  the 
substance  of  any  system  to  remove  its  corruptions,  to  supply 
its  defects,  or  to  perfect  its  construction.  If  our  religious 
tenets  should  ever  want  a  further  elucidation,  we  shall  not 
call  on  atheism  to  explain  them.  We  shall  not  light  up  our 
temple  from  that  unhallowed  fire.  It  will  be  illuminated  with 
other  lights.  It  will  be  perfumed  with  other  incense,  than 
the  infectious  stuff  which  is  imported  by  the  smugglers  of 
adulterated  metaphysics.  If  our  ecclesiastical  establishment 
should  want  a  revision,  it  is  not  avarice  or  rapacity,  public  or 
private,  that  we  shall  employ  for  the  audit,  or  receipt,  or 
application,  of  its  consecrated  revenue.  Violently  condemn- 
ing neither  the  Greek  nor  the  Armenian,  nor,  since  heats 
are  subsided,  the  Roman  system  of  religion,  we  prefer  the 
Protestant ;  not  because  we  think  it  has  less  of  the  Christian' 


*  Sit  igitur  hoc  ab  initio  persuasum  civibus,  dominos  esse  omnium 
renim  ac  moderatores,  deos;  eaque,  quae  gerantur,  eonim  geri  vi, 
ditione,  ac  numine:  eosdemque  optima  de  genera  hominum  mareri; 
at  qualis  quisqua  sit,  quid  agat,  quid  in  sa  admittat,  qua  mente,  qua 
pietate  colat  religiones  intueri ;  piorum  et  impionim  habere  rationem. 
His  enim  rebus  imbutae  mantes  baud  sane  abhorrebunt  ab  utili  et  a 
vera  sententia.    Cic.  de  Legibus,  1.  2. 


CONNEXION  OF  RELIGION  AND  POLICY.         ICJ 

religion  in  it,  but  because,  in  our  judgment,  it  has  more. 
We  are  protestants,  not  from  indifference,  but  from  zeal. 

We  know,  and  it  is  our  pride  to  know,  that  man  is  by  his 
constitution  a  religious  animal ;  that  atheism  is  against,  not 
only  our  Feason,  but  our  instincts ;  and  that  it  cannot  prevail 
long.  But  if,  in  the  moment  of  riot,  and  in  a  drunken  ^ 
delirium  from  the  hot  spirit  drawn  out  of  the  alembick  of  ' 
hell,  which  in  France  is  now  so  furiously  boiling,  we  should 
uncover  our  nakedness  by  throwing  off  that  Christian  religion 
which  has  hitherto  been  our  boast  and  comfort,  and  one 
great  source  of  civilization  amongst  us,  and  among  many 
other  nations,  we  are  apprehensive  (being  well  aware  that 
the  mind  will  not  endure  a  void)  that  some  uncouth,  per- 
nicious, and  degrading  superstition,  might  take  place  of  it. 
For  that  reason,  before  we  take  from  our  establishment 
the  natural  human  means  of  estimation,  and  give  it  up  to 
contempt,  as  you  have  done,  and  in  doing  it  have  incurred 
the  penalties  you  well  deserve  to  suffer,  we  desire  that  some 
other  may  be  presented  to  us  in  the  place  of  it.  We  shall 
then  form  our  judgment. 

On  these  ideas,  instead  of  quarrelling  with  establishments, 
as  some  do,  who  have  made  a  philosophy  and  a  religion 
of  their  hostility  to  such  institutions,  we  cleave  closely  to 
them.  We  are  resolved  to  keep  an  established  church,  | 
an  established  monarchy,  an  established  aristocracy,  and  an  { 
established  democracy,  each  in  the  degree  it  exists,  and 
in  no  greater.  I  shall  shew  you  presently  how  much  of 
each  of  these  we  possess. 

It  has  been  the  misfortune,  not  as  these  gentlemen  think 
it,  the  glory,  of  this  age,  that  every  thing  is  to  be  discussed; 
as  if  the  constitution  of  our  country  were  to  be  always  a 
subject  rather  of  altercation  than  enjoyment.  For  this 
reason,  as  well  as  for  the  satisfaction  of  those  among  you 
(if  any  such  you  have  among  you)  who  may  wish  to  profit 


Io8  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

of  examples,  I  venture  to  trouble  you  with  a  few  thoughts 
upon  each  of  these  establishments.  I  do  not  think  they 
were  unwise  in  antient  Rome,  who,  when  they  wished  to 
new-model  their  laws,  sent  commissioners  to  examine  the 
best  constituted  republics  within  their  reach. 

First,  I  beg  leave  to  speak  of  our  church  establishment, 
which  is  the  first  of  our  prejudices;  not  a  prejudice  destitute 
of  reason,  but  involving  in  it  prpfound  and  extensive  wisdom. 
I  speak  of  it  first.  It  is  first,  and  last,  and  midst  in  our 
minds.  For,  taking  ground  on  that  religious  system,  of 
which  we  are  now  in  possession,  we  continue  to  act  on 
the  early  received  and  uniformly  continued  sense  of  man- 
kind. That  sense  not  only,  like  a  wise  architect,  hath  built 
up  the  august  fabric  of  states,  but  like  a  provident  pro- 
prietor, to  preserve  the  structure  from  prophanation  and 
ruin,  as  a  sacred  temple,  purged  from  all  the  impurities 
of  fraud,  and  violence,  and  injustice,  and  tyranny,  hath 
solemnly  and  for  ever  consecrated  the  commonwealth,  and 
all  that  officiate  in  it.  This  consecration  is  made,  that  all 
who  administer  in  the  government  of  men,  in  which  they 
stand  in  the  person  of  God  himself,  should  have  high  and 
worthy  notions  of  their  function  and  destination ;  that  their 
hope  should  be  full  of  immortality;  that  they  should  not 
look  to  the  paltry  pelf  of  the  moment,  nor  to  the  temporary 
and  transient  praise  of  the  vulgar,  but  to  a  solid,  permanent 
existence,  in  the  permanent  part  of  their  nature,  and  to  a 
permanent  fame  and  glory,  in  the  example  they  leave  as 
a  rich  inheritance  to  the  world. 

Such  sublime  principles  ought  to  be  infused  into  persons 
of  exalted  situations ;  and  religious  establishments  provided, 
that  may  continually  revive  and  enforce  them.  Every  sort 
of  moral,  every  sort  of  civil,  every  sort  of  politic  institution, 
aiding  the  rational  and  natural  ties  that  connect  the  human 


THE   CHURCH  OF  ENGLAND.  IO9 

understanding  and  affections  to  the  divine,  are  not  more  than 
necessary,  in  order  to  build  up  that  wonderful  structure,  Man ; 
whose  prerogative  it  is,  to  be  in  a  great  degree  a  creature  of 
his  own  making;  and  who  when  made  as  he  ought  to  be 
made,  is  destined  to  hold  no  trivial  place  in  the  creation. 
But  whenever  man  is  put  over  men,  as  the  better  nature 
ought  ever  to  preside,  in  that  case  more  particularly,  he 
should  as  nearly  as  possible  be  approximated  to  his  per- 
fection. 

This  consecration  of  the  state,  by  a  state  religious  estab- 
lishment, is  necessary  also  to  operate  with  an  wholesome 
awe  upon  free  citizens;  because,  in  order  to  secure  their 
freedom,  they  must  enjoy  some  determinate  portion  of  power. 
To  them  therefore  a  religion  connected  with  the  state,  and 
with  their  duty  towards  it,  becomes  even  more  necessary 
than  in  such  societies,  where  the  people  by  the  terms  of 
their  subjection  are  confined  to  private  sentiments,  and  the 
management  of  their  own  family  concerns.  All  persons 
possessing  any  portion  of  power  ought  to  be  strongly  and 
awefully  impressed  with  an  idea  that  they  act  in  trust ;  and 
that  they  are  to  account  for  their  conduct  in  that  trust  to 
the  one  great  master,  author  and  founder  of  society. 

This  principle  ought  even  to  be  more  strongly  impressed 
upon  the  minds  of  those  who  compose  the  collective  sov- 
reignty  than  upon  those  of  single  princes.  Without  in- 
struments, these  princes  can  do  nothing.  Whoever  uses 
instruments,  in  finding  helps,  finds  also  impediments.  Their 
power  is  therefore  by  no  means  compleat;  nor  are  they 
safe  in  extreme  abuse.  Such  persons,  however  elevated 
by  flattery,  arrogance,  and  self-opinion,  must  be  sensible 
that,  whether  covered  or  not  by  positive  law,  in  some  way 
or  other  they  are  accountable  even  here  for  the  abuse  of 
their  trust.  If  they  are  not  cut  off  by  a  rebellion  of  their 
people,  they  may  be  strangled  by  the  very  Janissaries  kept 


no  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

for  their  security  against  all  other  rebellion.  Thus  we  have 
seen  the  king  of  France  sold  by  his  soldiers  for  an  encrease 
of  pay.  But  where  popular  authority  is  absolute  and  un- 
restrained, the  people  have  an  infinitely  greater,  because 
a  far  better  founded  confidence  in  their  own  power.  They 
are  themselves,  in  a  great  measure,  their  own  instruments. 
They  are  nearer  to  their  objects.  Besides,  they  are  less 
under  responsibility  to  one  -of  the  greatest  controlling  powers 
on  earth,  the  sense  of  fame  and  estimation.  The  share  of 
infamy  that  is  likely  to  fall  to  the  lot  of  each  individual 
in  public  acts,  is  small  indeed ;  the  operation  of  opinion 
being  in  the  inverse  ratio  to  the  number  of  those  who  abuse 
power.  Their  own  approbation  of  their  own  acts  has  to 
them  the  appearance  of  a  public  judgment  in  their  favour. 
A  perfect  democracy  is  therefore  the  most  shameless  thing 
in  the  world.  As  it  is  the  most  shameless,  it  is  also  the 
most  fearless.  No  man  apprehends  in  his  person  he  can 
be  made  subject  to  punishment.  Certainly  the  people  at 
large  never  ought:  for  as  all  punishments  are  for  example 
towards  the  conservation  of  the  people  at  large,  the  people 
at  large  can  never  become  the  subject  of  punishment  by 
any  human  hand*.  It  is  therefore  of  infinite  importance 
that  they  should  not  be  suffered  to  imagine  that  their  will, 
any  more  than  that  of  kings,  is  the  standard  of  right  and 
wrong.  They  ought  to  be  persuaded  that  they  are  full  as 
little  entitled,  and  far  less  qualified,  with  safety  to  themselves, 
to  use  any  arbitrary  power  whatsoever ;  that  therefore  they 
are  not,  under  a  false  shew  of  liberty,  but,  in  truth,  to 
exercise  an  unnatural  inverted  domination,  tyrannically  to 
exact,  from  those  who  officiate  in  the  state,  not  an  entire 
devotion  to  their  interest,  which  is  their  right,  but  an  abject 
submission  to  their  occasional  will;  extinguishing  thereby, 
in  all  those  who  serve  them,  all  moral  principle,  all  sense 
*  Quicquid  multis  peccatur  inultum. 


INFLUENCE   OF  RELIGION.  Ill 

of  dignity,  all  use  of  judgment,  and  all  consistency  of  cha- 
racter, whilst  by  the  very  same  process  they  give  them- 
selves up  a  proper,  a  suitable,  but  a  most  contemptible 
prey  to  the  servile  ambition  of  popular  sycophants  or 
courtly  flatterers. 

When  the  people  have  emptied  themselves  of  all  the  lust 
of  selfish  will,  which  without  religion  it  is  utterly  impossible 
they  ever  should,  when  they  are  conscious  that  they  exercise, 
and  exercise  perhaps  in  an  higher  link  of  the  order  of  dele- 
gation, the  power,  which  to  be  legitimate  must  be  according 
to  that  eternal  immutable  law,  in  which  will  and  reason  are 
the  same,  they  will  be  more  careful  how  they  place  power  in 
base  and  incapable  hands.  In  their  nomination  to  office, 
they  will  not  appoint  to  the  exercise  of  authority,  as  to  a 
pitiful  job,  but  as  to  an  holy  function;  not  according  to 
their  sordid  selfish  interest,  nor  to  their  wanton  caprice, 
nor  to  their  arbitrary  will ;  but  they  will  confer  that  power 
(which  any  man  may.  well  tremble  to  give  or  to  receive) 
on  those  only,  in  whom  they  may  discern  that  predominant 
proportion  of  active  virtue  and  wisdom,  taken  together  and 
fitted  to  the  charge,  such,  as  in  the  great  and  inevitable 
mixed  mass  of  human  imperfections  and  infirmities,  is  to 
be  found. 

When  they  are  habitually  convinced  that  no  evil  can  be 
acceptable,  either  in  the  act  or  the  permission,  to  him  whose 
essence  is  good,  they  will  be  better  able  to  extirpate  out  of 
the  minds  of  all  magistrates,  civil,  ecclesiastical,  or  military, 
any  thing  that  bears  the  least  resemblance  to  a  proud  and 
lawless  domination. 

But  one  of  the  first  and  most  leading  principles  on  which 
the  commonwealth  and  the  laws  are  consecrated,  is  lest  the 
temporary  possessors  and  life-renters  in  it,  unmindful  of 
what  they  have  received  from  their  ancestors,  or  of  what  is 


11%  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

due  to  their  posterity,  should  act  as  if  they  were  the  entire 
masters ;  that  they  should  not  think  it  amongst  their  rights 
to  cut  off  the  entail,  or  commit  waste  on  the  inheritance,  by 
destroying  at  their  pleasiue  the  whole  original  fabric  of  their 
society ;  hazarding  to  leave  to  those  who  come  after  them,  a 
ruin  instead  of  an  habitation,  and  teaching  these  successors 
as  little  to  respect  their  contrivances,  as  they  had  themselves 
respected  the  institutions  of  their  forefathers.  By  this  un- 
principled facility  of  changing  the  state  as  often,  and  as  much, 
and  in  as  many  ways,  as  there  are  floating  fancies  or  fashions, 
the  whole  chain  and  continuity  of  the  commonwealth  would 
be  broken.  No  one  generation  could  link  with  the  other. 
Men  would  become  little  better  than  the  flies  of  a  summer. 

And  first  of  all,  the  science  of  jurisprudence,  the  pride  of 
the  human  intellect,  which,  with  all  its  defects,  redundancies, 
and  errors,  is  the  collected  reason  of  ages,  combining  the 
principles  of  original  justice  with  the  infinite  variety  of 
human  concerns,  as  a  heap  of  old  exploded  errors,  would  be 
no  longer  studied.  Personal  self-sufficiency  and  arrogance, 
the  certain  attendants  upon  all  those  who  have  never  ex- 
perienced a  wisdom  greater  than  their  own,  would  usurp  the 
tribunal.  Of  course,  no  certain  laws,  establishing  invariable 
grounds  of  hope  and  fear,  would  keep  the  actions  of  men  in 
a  certain  course,  or  direct  them  to  a  certain  end.  Nothing 
stable  in  the  modes  of  holding  property,  or  exercising  func- 
tion, could  form  a  solid  ground  on  which  any  parent  could 
speculate  in  the  education  of  his  offspring,  or  in  a  choice  for 
their  future  establishment  in  the  world.  No  principles  would 
be  early  worked  into  the  habits.  As  soon  as  the  most  able 
instructor  had  completed  his  laborious  course  of  institution, 
instead  of  sending  forth  his  pupil,  accomphshed  in  a  virtuous 
discipline,  fitted  to  procure  him  attention  and  respect,  in  his 
place  in  society,  he  would  find  everything  altered ;  and  that 
he  had  turned  out  a  poor  creature  to  the  contempt  and  deri- 


THE   TRUE  SOCIAL  CONTRACT.  II3 

sion  of  the  world,  ignorant  of  the  true  grounds  of  estimation. 
Who  would  insure  a  tender  and  delicate  sense  of  honour  to 
beat  almost  with  the  first  pulses  of  the  heart,  when  no  man 
could  know  what  would  be  the  test  of  honour  in  a  nation, 
continually  varying  the  standard  of  its  coin  ?  No  part  of  life 
would  retain  its  acquisitions.  Barbarism  with  regard  to 
science  and  literature,  unskilfulness  with  regard  to  arts  and 
manufactures,  would  infallibly  succeed  to  the  want  of  a 
steady  education  and  settled  principle;  and  thus  the  com- 
monwealth itself  would,  in  a  few  generations,  crumble 
away,  be  disconnected  into  the  dust  and  powder  of  indi- 
viduality, and  at  length  dispersed  to  all  the  winds  of 
heaven. 

To  avoid  therefore  the  evils  of  inconstancy  and  versatility,  \^ 
ten  thousand  times  worse  than  those  of  obstinacy  and  the 
blindest  prejudice,  we  have  consecrated  the  state ;  that  no  man 
should  approach  to  look  into  its  defects  or  corruptions  but     \ 
with  due  caution ;  that  he  should  never  dream  of  beginning 
its  reformation  by  its  subversion  ;  that  he  should  approach  to     . 
the  faults  of  the  state  as  to  the  wounds  of  a  father,  with  pious      \ 
awe  and  trembling  solicitude.     By  this  wise  prejudice  we  are 
taught  to  look  with  horror  on  those  children  of  their  country      ' 
who  are  prompt  rashly  to  hack  that  aged  parent  in  pieces, 
and  put  him  into  the  kettle  of  magicians,  in  hopes  that  by 
their   poisonous   weeds,   and   wild   incantations,   they   may 
regenerate   the   paternal    constitution,    and    renovate    their 
father's  life. 

Society  is  indeed  a  contract.  Subordinate  contracts,  for 
objects  of  mere  occasional  interest,  may  be  dissolved  at 
pleasure ;  but  the  state  ought  not  to  be  considered  as 
nothing  better  than  a  partnership  agreement  in  a  trade  of 
pepper  and  coflfee,  callico  or  tobacco,  or  some  other  such 
low  concern,  to  be  taken  up  for  a  little  temporary  interest, 

VOL.   II.  I 


114  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

and  to  be  dissolved  by  the  fancy  of  the  parties.  It  is  to  be 
looked  on  with  other  reverence ;  because  it  is  not  a  partner- 
ship in  things  subservient  only  to  the  gross  animal  existence 
of  a  temporary  and  perishable  nature.  It  is  a  partnership  in 
all  science ;  a  partnership  in  all  art ;  a  partnership  in  every 
virtue,  and  in  all  perfection.  As  the  ends  of  such  a  partner- 
ship cannot  be  obtained  in  many  generations,  it  becomes  a 
partnership  not  only  between  those  who  are  living,  but 
between  those  who  are  living,  those  who  are  dead,  and  those 
who  are  to  be  born.  Each  contract  of  each  particular  state 
is  but  a  clause  in  the  great  primaeval  contract  of  eternal 
society,  linking  the  lower  with  the  higher  natures,  connecting 
the  visible  and  invisible  world,  according  to  a  fixed  compact 
sanctioned  by  the  inviolable  oath  which  holds  all  physical 
^nd  all  moral  natures,  each  in  their  appointed  place.  This 
law  is  not  subject  to  the  will  of  those,  who  by  an  obligation 
above  them,  and  infinitely  superior,  are  bound  to  submit 
their  will  to  that  law.  The  municipal  corporations  of  that 
universal  kingdom  are  not  morally  at  liberty  at  their  pleasure, 
and  on  their  speculations  of  a  contingent  improvement, 
wholly  to  separate  and  tear  asunder  the  bands  of  their  sub- 
ordinate community,  and  to  dissolve  it  into  an  unsocial, 
uncivil,  unconnected  chaos  of  elementary  principles.  It  is 
the  first  and  supreme  necessity  only,  a  necessity  that  is  not 
chosen  but  chooses,  a  necessity  paramount  to  deliberation, 
that  admits  no  discussion,  and  demands  no  evidence,  which 
alone  can  justify  a  resort  to  anarchy.  This  necessity  is  no 
exception  to  the  rule ;  because  this  necessity  itself  is  a  part 
too  of  that  moral  and  physical  disposition  of  things  to  which 
man  must  be  obedient  by  consent  or  force.  But  if  that  which 
is  only  submission  to  necessity  should  be  made  the  object  of 
choice,  the  law  is  broken ;  nature  is  disobeyed ;  and  the  re- 
bellious are  outlawed,  cast  forth,  and  exiled,  from  this  world 
of  reason,  and  order,  and  peace,  and  virtue,  and  fruitful  peni- 


THE  STATE  DEPENDS   ON  THE  DIVINE   WILL.    I15 

tence,  into  the  antagonist  world  of  madness,  discord,  vice, 
confusion,  and  unavailing  sorrow. 

These,  my  dear  Sir,  are,  were,  and  I  think  long  will  be 
the  sentiments  of  not  the  least  learned  and  reflecting  part  of 
this  kingdom.  They  who  are  included  in  this  description 
form  their  opinions  on  such  grounds  as  such  persons  ought 
to  form  them.  The  less  enquiring  receive  them  from  an 
authority  which  those  whom  Providence  dooms  to  live  on 
trust  need  not  be  ashamed  to  rely  on.  These  two  sorts  of 
men  move  in  the  same  direction,  tho'  in  a  different  place. 
They  both  move  with  the  order  of  the  universe.  They  all 
know  or  feel  this  great  antient  truth :  '  Quod  illi  principi  et 
prsepotenti  Deo  qui  omnem  hunc  mundum  regit,  nihil  eorum 
quae  quidem  fiant  in  terris  acceptius  quam  concilia  et  coetus 
hominum  jure  sociati  quae  civitates  appellantur.'  They  take 
this  tenet  of  the  head  and  heart,  not  from  the  great  name 
which  it  immediately  bears,  nor  from  the  greater  from 
whence  it  is  derived;  but  from  that  which  alone  can  give 
true  weight  and  sanction  to  any  learned  opinion,  the  com- 
mon nature  and  common  relation  of  men.  Persuaded  that 
all  things  ought  to  be  done  with  reference,  and  referring  all 
to  the  point  of  reference  to  which  all  should  be  directed, 
they  think  themselves  bound,  not  only  as  individuals  in  the 
sanctuary  of  the  heart,  or  as  congregated  in  that  personal 
capacity,  to  renew  the  memory  of  their  high  origin  and  cast ; 
but  also  in  their  corporate  character  to  perform  their  national 
homage  to  the  institutor,  and  author  and  protector  of  civil 
society;  without  which  civil  society  man  could  not  by  any 
possibility  arrive  at  the  perfection  of  which  his  nature  is 
capable,  nor  even  make  a  remote  and  faint  approach  to  it. 
They  conceive  that  He  who  gave  our  nature  to  be  perfected 
by  our  virtue,  willed  also  the  necessary  means  of  its  perfec- 
tion.   He  willed  therefore  the  state;   He  willed  its  connexion 

I  2 


Il6  RE  VOL  UTION  IN  FRANCE. 

with  the  source  and  original  archetype  of  all  perfection. 
They  who  are  convinced  of  this  his  will,  which  is  the  law  of 
laws  and  the  sovereign  of  sovereigns,  cannot  think  it  repre- 
hensible, that  this  our  corporate  fealty  and  homage,  that  this 
our  recognition  of  a  seigniory  paramount,  I  had  almost  said 
this  oblation  of  the  state  itself,  as  a  worthy  offering  on  the 
high  altar  of  universal  praise,  should  be  performed,  as  all 
publick  solemn  acts  are  performed,  in  buildings,  in  musick,  iri 
decoration,  in  speech,  in  the  dignity  of  persons,  according  to 
the  customs  of  mankind,  taught  by  their  nature  ;  that  is,  with 
modest  splendour,  with  unassuming  state,  with  mild  majesty 
and  sober  pomp.  For  those  purposes  they  think  some  part 
of  the  wealth  of  the  country  is  as  usefully  employed,  as  it  can 
be  in  fomenting  the  luxury  of  individuals.  It  is  the  publick 
ornament.  It  is  the  publick  consolation.  It  nourishes  the 
publick  hope.  The  poorest  man  finds  his  own  importance 
and  dignity  in  it,  whilst  the  wealth  and  pride  of  individuals 
at  every  moment  makes  the  man  of  humble  rank  and  fortune 
sensible  of  his  inferiority,  and  degrades  and  vilifies  his  con- 
dition. It  is  for  the  man  in  humble  life,  and  to  raise  his 
nature,  and  to  put  him  in  mind  of  a  state  in  which  the  privi- 
leges of  opulence  will  cease,  when  he  will  be  equal  by  nature, 
and  may  be  more  than  equal  by  virtue — that  this  portion  of 
the  general  wealth  of  his  country  is  employed  and  sanctified. 
I  assure  you  I  do  not  aim  at  singularity.  I  give  you 
opinions  which  have  been  accepted  amongst  us,  from  very 
early  times  to  this  moment,  with  a  continued  and  general 
approbation;  and  which  indeed  are  so  worked  into  my  mind, 
that  I  am  unable  to  distinguish  what  I  have  learned  from 
others  from  the  results  of  my  own  meditation. 
^  It  is  on  some  such  principles  that  the  majority  of  the 
■  people  of  England,  far  from  thinking  a  religious  national 
/  establishment  unlawful,  hardly  think  it  lawful  to  be  without 
(    one.     In  France  you  are  wholly  mistaken  if  you  do  not 


EDUCATION  MADE  RELIGIOUS,  II7 

believe  us  above  all  other  things  attached  to  it,  and  beyond 
all  other  nations ;  and  when  this  people  has  acted  unwisely 
and  unjustifiably  in  its  favour  (as  in  some  instances  they 
have  done  most  certainly)  in  their  very  errors  you  will  at 
least  discover  their  zeal. 

This  principle  runs  through  the  whole  system  of  their 
polity.  They  do  not  consider  their  church  establishment  as 
convenient,  but  as  essential  to  their  state;  not  as  a  thing 
heterogeneous  and  separable ;  something  added  for  accom- 
modation; what  they  may  either  keep  up  or  lay  aside, 
according  to  their  temporary  ideas  of  convenience.  They 
consider  it  as  the  foundation  of  their  whole  constitution, 
with  which,  and  with  every  part  of  which,  it  holds  an  indis- 
soluble union.  Church  and  state  are  ideas  inseparable  in 
their  minds,  and  scarcely  is  the  one  ever  mentioned  without 
mentioning  the  other. 

Our  education  is  so  formed  as  to  confirm  and  fix  this  im- 
pression. Our  education  is  in  a  manner  wholly  in  the  hands 
of  ecclesiastics,  and  in  all  stages  from  infancy  to  manhood. 
Even  when  our  youth,  leaving  schools  and  universities,  enter 
that  most  important  period  of  life  which  begins  to  link  ex- 
perience and  study  together,  and  when  with  that  view  they 
visit  other  countries,  instead  of  old  domestics  whom  we  have 
seen  as  governors  to  principal  men  from  other  parts,  three- 
fourths  of  those  who  go  abroad  with  our  young  nobility  and 
gentlemen  are  ecclesiastics;  not  as  austere  masters,  nor  as 
mere  followers ;  but  as  friends  and  companions  of  a  graver 
character,  and  not  seldom  persons  as  well  born  as  them- 
selves. With  them,  as  relations,  they  most  commonly  keep 
up  a  close  connexion  through  life.  By  this  connexion  we 
conceive  that  we  attach  our  gentlemen  to  the  church ;  and 
we  liberalize  the  church  by  an  intercourse  with  the  leading 
characters  of  the  country. 


Il8  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

So  tenacious  are  we  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  modes  and 
fashions  of  institution,  that  very  little  alteration  has  been 
made  in  them  since  the  fourteenth  or  fifteenth  century ; 
adhering  in  this  particular,  as  in  all  things  else,  to  our  old 
settled  maxim,  never  entirely  nor  at  once  to  depart  from 
antiquity.  We  found  these  old  institutions,  on  the  whole, 
favourable  to  morality  and  discipline ;  and  we  thought  they 
were  susceptible  of  amendment,  without  altering  the  ground. 
We  thought  that  they  were  capable  of  receiving  and  melio- 
rating, and  above  all  of  preserving,  the  accessions  of  science 
and  literature,  as  the  order  of  Providence  should  successively 
produce  them.  And  after  all,  with  this  Gothic  and  monkish 
education  (for  such  it  is  in  the  ground-work)  we  may  put  in 
our  claim  to  as  ample  and  as  early  a  share  in  all  the  im- 
provements in  science,  in  arts,  and  in  literature,  which  have 
'illuminated  and  adorned  the  modern  world,  as  any  other 
nation  in  Europe  ;  we  think  one  main  cause  of  this  improve- 
ment was  our  not  despising  the  patrimony  of  knowledge 
which  was  left  us  by  our  forefathers. 

It  is  from  our  attachment  to  a  church  establishment  that 
the  English  nation  did  not  think  it  wise  to  entrust  that  great 
fundamental  interest  of  the  whole  to  what  they  trust  no  part 
of  their  civil  or  military  public  service,  that  is,  to  the  unsteady 
and  precarious  contribution  of  individuals.  They  go  further. 
They  certainly  never  have  suffered  and  never  will  suffer  the 
fixed  estate  of  the  church  to  be  converted  into  a  pension,  to 
depend  on  the  treasury,  and  to  be  delayed,  withheld,  or 
perhaps  to  be  extinguished  by  fiscal  difficulties ;  which  diffi- 
culties may  sometimes  be  pretended  for  political  purposes, 
and  are  in  fact  often  brought  on  by  the  extravagance,  negli- 
gence, and  rapacity  of  politicians.  The  people  of  England 
think  that  they  have  constitutional  motives,  as  well  as  re- 
ligious, against  any  project  of  turning  their  independent 
clergy  into  ecclesiastical  pensioners  of  state.     They  tremble 


THE   CHURCH  ENDOWMENT.  II9 

for  their  liberty,  from  the  influence  of  a  clergy  dependent  on 
the  crown ;  they  tremble  for  the  public  tranquillity  from  the 
disorders  of  a  factious  clergy,  if  it  were  made  to  depend  upon 
any  other  than  the  crown.  They  therefore  made  their 
church,  like  their  king  and  their  nobility,  independent. 

From  the  united  considerations  of  religion  and  constitu- 
tional policy,  from  their  opinion  of  a  duty  to  make  a  sure 
provision  for  the  consolation  of  the  feeble  and  the  instruction 
of  the  ignorant,  they  have  incorporated  and  identified  the 
estate  of  the  church  with  the  mass  oi  private  property,  of 
which   the   state   is   not   the   proprietor,  either   for   use  or  \ 
dominion,  but  the  guardian  only  and  the  regulator.     They  / 
have  ordained  that  the  provision  of  this  establishment  might  ! 
be  as  stable  as  the  earth  on  which  it  stands,  and  should  not   ; 
fluctuate  with  the  Euripus  of  funds  and  actions.  —' 

The  men  of  England,  the  men,  I  mean,  of  light  and  lead- 
ing in  England,  whose  wisdom  (if  they  have  any)  is  open 
and  direct,  would  be  ashamed,  as  of  a  silly  deceitful  trick,  to 
profess  any  religion  in  name,  which  by  their  proceedings 
they  appeared  to  contemn.  If  by  their  conduct  (the  only 
language  that  rarely  lies)  they  seemed  to  regard  the  great 
ruling  principle  of  the  moral  and  the  natural  world,  as  a 
mere  invention  to  keep  the  vulgar  in  obedience,  they  appre- 
hend that  by  such  a  conduct  they  would  defeat  the  politic 
purpose  they  have  in  view.  They  would  find  it  difficult  to 
make  others  to  believe  in  a  system  to  which  they  manifestly 
gave  no  credit  themselves.  The  Christian  statesmen  of  this  , 
land  would  indeed  first  provide  for  the  multitude  ;  because  it 
is  the  multitude  ;  and  is  therefore,  as  such,  the  first  object  in 
the  ecclesiastical  insdtution,  and  in  all  institutions.  They 
have  been  taught  that  the  circumstance  of  the  gospel's  being 
preached  to  the  poor  was  one  of  the  great  tests  of  its  true 
mission.     They  think,  therefore,  that  those  do  not  believe  it, 


J  20  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

who  do  not  take  care  it  should  be  preached  to  the  poor. 
But  as  they  know  that  charity  is  not  confined  to  any  one 
description,  but  ought  to  apply  itself  to  all  men  who  have 
wants,  they  are  not  deprived  of  a  due  and  anxious  sensation 
of  pity  to  the  distresses  of  the  miserable  great.  They  are  not 
repelled  through  a  fastidious  delicacy,  at  the  stench  of  their 
arrogance  and  presumption,  from  a  medicinal  attention  to 
their  mental  blotches  and  running  sores.  They  are  sensible, 
that  religious  instruction  is  of  more  consequence  to  them 
than  to  any  others ;  from  the  greatness  of  the  temptation  to 
which  they  are  exposed;  from  the  important  consequences 
that  attend  their  faults ;  from  the  contagion  of  their  ill  ex- 
ample ;  from  the  necessity  of  bowing  down  the  stubborn 
neck  of  their  pride  and  ambition  to  the  yoke  of  moderation 
and  virtue;  from  a  consideration  of  the  fat  stupidity  and 
gross  ignorance  concerning  what  imports  men  most  to  know, 
which  prevails  at  courts,  and  at  the  head  of  armies,  and  in 
senates,  as  much  as  at  the  loom  and  in  the  field. 

The  English  people  are  satisfied,  that  to  the  great  the 
consolations  of  religion  are  as  necessary  as  its  instructions. 
They  too  are  among  the  unhappy.  They  feel  personal  pain 
and  domestic  sorrow.  In  these  they  have  no  privilege,  but 
are  subject  to  pay  their  full  contingent  to  the  contributions 
levied  on  mortality.  They  want  this  sovereign  balm  under 
their  gnawing  cares  and  anxieties,  which  being  less  conver- 
sant about  the  limited  wants  of  animal  life,  range  without 
limit,  and  are  diversified  by  infinite  combinations  in  the  wild 
and  unbounded  regions  of  imagination.  Some  charitable 
dole  is  wanting  to  these,  our  often  very  unhappy  brethren,  to 
fill  the  gloomy  void  that  reigns  in  minds  which  have  nothing 
on  earth  to  hope  or  fear;  something  to  relieve  in  the 
killing  languor  and  over-laboured  lassitude  of  those  who 
have  nothing  to  do;  something  to  excite  an  appetite  to 
existence  in  the  palled  satiety  which  attends  on  all  pleasures 


THE  CHURCH  ALL-PERVADING.  121 

which  may  be  bought,  where  nature  is  not  left  to  her  own 
process,  where  even  desire  is  anticipated,  and  therefore 
fruition  defeated  by  meditated  schemes  and  contrivances  of 
delight ;  and  no  interval,  no  obstacle,  is  interposed  between 
the  wish  and  the  accomplishment. 

The  people  of  England  know  how  little  influence  the  ; 
teachers  of  religion  are  likely  to  have  with  the  wealthy  and 
powerful   of  long   standing,  and  how  much  less  with  the   : 
newly  fortunate,  if  they  appear  in  a  manner  no  way  assorted    ! 
to  those  with  whom  they  must  associate,  and  over  whom    I 
they  must  even  exercise,  in  some  cases,  something  like  an    j 
authority.     What  must  they  think  of  that  body  of  teachers, 
if  they  see  it  in  no  part  above  the  establishment  of  their 
domestic   servants  ?     If  the  poverty  were   voluntary,   there 
might  be  some  difference.     Strong  instances  of  self-denial 
operate  powerfully  on  our  minds;  and  a  man  who  has  no  wants 
has  obtained  great  freedom  and  firmness,  and  even  dignity. 
But  as  the  mass  of  any  description  of  men  are  but  men,  and 
their   poverty   cannot   be  voluntary,  that   disrespect  which 
attends  upon  all  lay  poverty,  will  not  depart  from  the  ec- 
clesiastical.    Our  provident  constitution  has  therefore  taken  ^ 
care  that  those  who  are  to  instruct  presumptuous  ignorance,  , 
those   who   are   to   be   censors   over  insolent  vice,  should 
neither  incur  their  contempt,  nor  live  upon  their  alms ;  nor 
will  it  tempt  the  rich  to  a  neglect  of  the  true  medicine  of 
their  minds.     For  these  reasons,  whilst  we  provide  first  for 
the  poor,  and  with  a  parental  solicitude,  we  have  not  rele- 
gated religion,  like  something  we  were  ashamed  to  shew,  to 
obscure  municipalities  or  rustic  villages.     No  !  We  will  have 
her  to  exalt  her  mitred  front  in  courts  and  parliaments.     We 
will  have  her  mixed  throughout  the  whole  mass  of  life,  and' 
blended  with   all  the   classes   of  society.     The   people  of 
England  will  shew  to  the  haughty  potentates  of  the  world, 
and  to  their  talking  sophisters,  that  a  free,  a  generous,  an 


123  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

informed  nation,  honours  the  high  magistrates  of  its  church ; 
that  it  will  not  suffer  the  insolence  of  wealth  and  titles,  or 
any  other  species  of  proud  pretension,  to  look  down  with 
scorn  upon  what  they  look  up  to  with  reverence ;  nor  pre- 
sume to  trample  on  that  acquired  personal  nobility,  which 
they  intend  always  to  be,  and  which  often  is  the  fruit,  not 
the  reward,  (for  what  can  be  the  reward  ?)  of  learning,  piety, 
and  virtue.  They  can  see,  without  pain  or  gradging,  an 
Archbishop  precede  a  Duke.  They  can  see  a  Bishop  of 
Durham,  or  a  Bishop  of  Winchester,  in  possession  of  ten 
thousand  pounds  a  year;  and  cannot  conceive  why  it 
is  in  worse  hands  than  estates  to  the  like  amount  in  the 
hands  of  this  Earl,  or  that  Squire ;  although  it  may  be  true, 
that  so  many  dogs  and  horses  are  not  kept  by  the  former, 
and  fed  with  the  victuals  which  ought  to  nourish  the  children 
of  the  people.  It  is  true,  the  whole  church  revenue  is  not 
always  employed,  and  to  every  shilling,  in  charity ;  nor  per- 
haps ought  it ;  but  something  is  generally  so  employed.  It 
is  better  to  cherish  virtue  and  humanity,  by  leaving  much  to 
free  will,  even  with  some  loss  to  the  object,  than  to  attempt 
to  make  men  mere  machines  and  instruments  of  a  political 
benevolence.  The  world  on  the  whole  will  gain  by  a  Uberty, 
without  which  virtue  cannot  exist. 

When  once  the  commonwealth  has  established  the  estates 
of  the  church  as  property,  it  can,  consistently,  hear  nothing 
of  the  more  or  the  less.  Too  much  and  too  little  are  treason 
against  property.  What  evil  can  arise  from  the  quantity  in 
any  hand,  whilst  the  supreme  authority  has  the  full,  sovereign 
superintendance  over  this,  as  over  all  property,  to  prevent 
every  species  of  abuse ;  and,  whenever  it  notably  deviates,  to 
give  to  it  a  direction  agreeable  to  the  purposes  of  its  in- 
stitution. 

In  England   most  of  us  conceive   that  it  is   envy   and 


CHURCH  PR  OPE  RTF  PRIVATE  PROPERTY.       1 23 

malignity  towards  those  who  are  often  the  beginners  of 
their  own  fortune,  and  not  a  love  of  the  self-denial  and 
mortification  of  the  antient  church,  that  makes  some  look 
askance  at  the  distinctions,  and  honours,  and  revenues, 
which,  taken  from  no  person,  are  set  apart  for  virtue.  The 
ears  of  the  people  of  England  are  distinguishing.  They 
hear  these  men  speak  broad.  Their  tongue  betrays  them. 
Their  language  is  in  the  patois  of  fraud ;  in  the  cant  and 
gibberish  of  hypocrisy.  The  people  of  England  must  think 
so,  when  these  praters  affect  to  carry  back  the  clergy  to  that 
primitive  evangelic  poverty  which,  in  the  spirit,  ought  always 
to  exist  in  them,  (and  in  us  too,  however  we  may  like  it)  but 
in  the  thing  must  be  varied,  when  the  relation  of  that  body 
to  the  state  is  altered  ;  when  manners,  when  modes  of  life, ' 
when  indeed  the  whole  order  of  human  affairs  has  under- 
gone a  total  revolution.  We  shall  believe  those  reformers  to 
be  then  honest  enthusiasts,  not  as  now  we  think  them,  ' 
cheats  and  deceivers,  when  we  see  them  throwing  their  own 
goods  into  common,  and  submitting  their  own  persons  to 
the  austere  discipline  of  the  early  church. 

With  these  ideas  rooted  in  their  minds,  the  commons  of 
Great  Britain,  in  the  national  emergencies,  will  never  seek 
their  resource  from  the  confiscation  of  the  estates  of  the 
church  and  poor.  Sacrilege  and  proscription  are  not  among 
the  ways  and  means  in  our  committee  of  supply.  The  Jews 
in  Change  Alley  have  not  yet  dared  to  hint  their  hopes  of  a 
mortgage  on  the  revenues  belonging  to  the  see  of  Canter- 
bury. I  am  not  afraid  that  I  shall  be  disavowed,  when  I 
assure  you  that  there  is  not  one  public  man  in  this  kingdom, 
whom  you  would  wish  to  quote ;  no  not  one  of  any  party  or 
description,  who  does  not  reprobate  the  dishonest,  per- 
fidious, and  cruel  confiscation  which  the  national  assembly 
has  been  compelled  to  make  of  that  property  which  it  was 
their  first  duty  to  protect. 


124  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

It  is  with  the  exultation  of  a  little  national  pride  I  tell  you, 
that  those  amongst  us  who  have  wished  to  pledge  the 
societies  of  Paris  in  the  cup  of  their  abominations,  have 
been  disappointed.  The  robbery  of  your  church  has  proved 
a  security  to  the  possessions  of  ours.  It  has  roused  the 
people.  They  see  with  horror  and  alarm  that  enormous  and 
shameless  act  of  proscription.  It  has  opened,  and  will  more 
and  more  open  their  eyes  upon  the  selfish  enlargement  of 
mind,  and  the  narrow  liberality  of  sentiment  of  insidious  men, 
which  commencing  in  close  hypocrisy  and  fraud  have  ended 
in  open  violence  and  rapine.  At  home  we  behold  similar  be- 
ginnings. We  are  on  our  guard  against  similar  conclusions. 
v^  I  hope  we  shall  never  be  so  totally  lost  to  all  sense  of  the 
duties  imposed  upon  us  by  the  law  of  social  union,  as,  upon 
any  pretext  of  public  service,  to  confiscate  the  goods  of  a 
single  unoffending  citizen.  Who  but  a  tyrant  (a  name  ex- 
pressive of  every  thing  which  can  vitiate  and  degrade  human 
nature)  could  think  of  seizing  on  the  property  of  men,  un- 
accused, unheard,  untried,  by  whole  descriptions,  by  hundreds 
and  thousands  together  ?  who  that  had  not  lost  every  trace 
of  humanity  could  think  of  casting  down  men  of  exalted 
rank  and  sacred  function,  some  of  them  of  an  age  to  call  at 
once  for  reverence  and  compassion — of  casting  them  down 
from  the  highest  situation  in  the  commonwealth,  wherein 
they  were  maintained  by  their  own  landed  property,  to  a 
state  of  indigence,  depression  and  contempt  ? 

The  confiscators  truly  have  made  some  allowance  to  their 
victims  from  the  scraps  and  fragments  of  their  own  tables 
from  which  they  have  been  so  harshly  driven,  and  which 
have  been  so  bountifully  spread  for  a  feast  to  the  harpies  of 
usury.  But  to  drive  men  from  independence  to  live  on  alms 
is  itself  great  cruelty.  That  which  might  be  a  tolerable 
condition  to  men  in  one  state  of  life,  and  not  habituated  to 
other  things,  may,  when  all  these  circumstances  are  altered, 


IMPOLICY  OF  CONFISCATION.  12$ 

he  a  dreadful  revolution  ;  and  one  to  which  a  virtuous  mind 
would  feel  pain  in  condemning  any  guilt  except  that  which 
would  demand  the  life  of  the  offender.  But  to  many  minds 
this  punishment  of  degradation  and  infamy  is  worse  than 
death.  Undoubtedly  it  is  an  infinite  aggravation  of  this 
cruel  suffering,  that  the  persons  who  were  taught  a  double 
prejudice  in  favour  of  religion,  by  education  and  by  the 
place  they  held  in  the  administration  of  its  functions,  are  to 
receive  the  remnants  of  their  property  as  alms  from  the  pro- 
fane and  impious  hands  of  those  who  had  plundered  them 
of  all  the  rest ;  to  receive  (if  they  are  at  all  to  receive)  not 
from  the  charitable  contributions  of  the  faithful,  but  from 
the  insolent  tenderness  of  known  and  avowed  Atheism,  the 
maintenance  of  religion,  measured  out  to  them  on  the 
standard  of  the  contempt  in  which  it  is  held ;  and  for  the 
purpose  of  rendering  those  who  receive  the  allowance  vile 
and  of  no  estimation  in  the  eyes  of  mankind. 

But  this  act  of  seizure  of  property,  it  seems,  is  a  judgment 
in  law,  and  not  a  cenfiscation.  They  have,  it  seems,  found 
out  in  the  academies  of  the  Palais  Royal,  and  the  Jacobins, 
that  certain  men  had  no  right  to  the  possessions  which  they 
held  under  law,  usage,  the  decisions  of  courts,  and  the 
accumulated  prescription  of  a  thousand  years.  They  say 
that  ecclesiastics  are  fictitious  persons,  creatures  of  the  state ; 
whom  at  pleasure  they  may  destroy,  and  of  course  limit  and 
modify  in  every  particular ;  that  the  goods  they  possess  are 
not  properly  theirs,  but  belong  to  the  state  which  created 
the  fiction;  and  we  are  therefore  not  to  trouble  ourselves 
with  what  they  may  suffer  in  their  natural  feelings  and 
natural  persons,  on  account  of  what  is  done  towards  them 
in  this  their  constructive  character.  Of  what  import  is  it, 
under  what  names  you  injure  men,  and  deprive  them  of  the 
just  emoluments  of  a  profession,  in  which  they  were  not 
only  permitted  but  encouraged  by  the  state  to  engage ;  and 


126  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

upon  the  supposed  certainty  of  which  emoluments  they  had 
formed  the  plan  of  their  lives,  contracted  debts,  and  led 
multitudes  to  an  entire  dependence  upon  them  ? 

You  do  not  imagine,  Sir,  that  I  am  going  to  compliment 
this  miserable  distinction  of  persons  with  any  long  discussion. 
The  arguments  of  tyranny  are  as  contemptible  as  its  force  is 
dreadful.  Had  not  your  confiscators  by  their  early  crimes 
obtained  a  power  which  secures  indemnity  to  all  the  crimes 
of  which  they  have  since  been  guilty,  or  that  they  can 
commit,  it  is  not  the  syllogism  of  the  logician,  but  the  lash 
of  the  executioner,  that  would  have  refuted  a  sophistry  which 
becomes  an  accomplice  of  theft  and  murder.  The  sophis- 
tick  tyrants  of  Paris  are  loud  in  their  declamations  against 
the  departed  regal  tyrants  who  in  former  ages  have  vexed 
the  world.  They  are  thus  bold,  because  they  are  safe  from 
the  dungeons  and  iron  cages  of  their  old  masters.  Shall  we 
be  more  tender  of  the  tyrants  of  our  own  time,  when  we  see 
them  acting  worse  tragedies  under  our  eyes  ?  Shall  we  not 
use  the  same  liberty  that  they  do,  whefl  we  can  use  it  with 
the  same  safety  ?  when  to  speak  honest  truth  only  requires  a 
contempt  of  the  opinions  of  those  whose  actions  we  abhor  ? 

This  outrage  on  all  the  rights  of  property  was  at  first 
covered  with  what,  on  the  system  of  their  conduct,  was  the 
most  astonishing  of  all  pretexts — a  regard  to  national  faith. 
The  enemies  to  property  at  first  pretended  a  most  tender, 
delicate,  and  scrupulous  anxiety  for  keeping  the  king's  en- 
gagements with  the  public  creditor.  These  professors  of 
the  rights  of  men  are  so  busy  in  teaching  others,  that  they 
have  not  leisure  to  learn  any  thing  themselves ;  otherwise 
they  would  have  known  that  it  is  to  the  property  of  the 
citizen,  and  not  to  the  demands  of  the  creditor  of  the  state, 
that  the  first  and  original  faith  of  civil  society  is  pledged. 
The  claim  of  the  citizen  is  prior  in  time,  paramount  in  title, 


THE  PRETEXT  FOR    CONFISCATION.  1 27 

superior  in  equity.  The  fortunes  of  individuals,  whether 
possessed  by  acquisition,  or  by  descent,  or  in  virtue  of  a 
participation  in  the  goods  of  some  community,  were  no  part 
of  the  creditor's  security,  expressed  or  implied.  They  never 
so  much  as  entered  into  his  head  when  he  made  his  bargain. 
He  well  knew  that  the  public,  whether  represented  by  a 
monarch,  or  by  a  senate,  can  pledge  nothing  but  the  public 
estate ;  and  it  can  have  no  public  estate,  except  in  what  it 
derives  from  a  just  and  proportioned  imposition  upon  the 
citizens  at  large.  This  was  engaged,  and  nothing  else  could 
be  engaged,  to  the  public  creditor.  No  man  can  mortgage 
his  injustice  as  a  pawn  for  his  fidelity. 

It  is  impossible  to  avoid  some  observation  on  the  contra- 
dictions caused  by  the  extreme  rigour  and  the  extreme  laxity 
of  the  new  public  faith  which  influenced  in  this  transaction, 
and  which  influenced  not  according  to  the  nature  of  the 
obligation,  but  to  the  description  of  the  persons  to  whom 
it  was  engaged.  No  acts  of  the  old  government  of  the  kings 
of  France  are  held  valid  in  the  National  Assembly,  except  its 
pecuniary  engagements;  acts  of  all  others  of  the  most 
ambiguous  legality.  The  rest  of  the  acts  of  that  royal 
government  are  considered  in  so  odious  a  light,  that  to  have 
a  claim  under  its  authority  is  looked  on  as  a  sort  of  crime. 
A  pension,  given  as  a  reward  for  service  to  the  state,  is 
surely  as  good  a  ground  of  property  as  any  security  for 
money  advanced  to  the  state.  It  is  a  better;  for  money  is 
paid,  and  well  paid,  to  obtain  that  service.  We  have  how- 
ever seen  multitudes  of  people  under  this  description  in 
France,  who  never  had  been  deprived  of  their  allowances  by 
the  most  arbitrary  ministers  in  the  most  arbitrary  times,  by 
this  assembly  of  the  rights  of  men  robbed  without  mercy. 
They  were  told,  in  answer  to  their  claim  to  the  bread  earned 
with  their  blood,  that  their  services  had  not  been  rendered  to 
the  country  that  now  exists. 


128  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE, 

This  laxity  of  public  faith  is  not  confined  to  those  un- 
fortunate persons.  The  assembly  (with  perfect  consistency 
it  must  be  owned)  is  engaged  in  a  respectable  deliberation 
how  far  it  is  bound  by  the  treaties  made  with  other  nations 
under  the  former  government,  and  their  Committee  is  to 
report  which  of  them  they  ought  to  ratify,  and  which  not. 
By  this  means  they  have  put  the  external  fidelity  of  this 
virgin  state  on  a  par  with  its  internal. 

It  is  not  easy  to  conceive  upon  what  rational  principle  the 
royal  government  should  not,  of  the  two,  rather  have 
possessed  the  power  of  rewarding  service,  and  making 
treaties,  in  virtue  of  its  prerogative,  than  that  of  pledging  to 
creditors  the  revenue  of  the  state  actual  and  possible.  The 
treasure  of  the  nation,  of  all  things,  has  been  the  least 
allowed  to  the  prerogative  of  the  king  of  France,  or  to  the 
prerogative  of  any  king  in  Europe.  To  mortgage  the  public 
revenue  implies  the  sovereign  dominion,  in  the  fullest  sense, 
over  the  public  purse.  It  goes  far  beyond  the  trust  even  of 
a  temporary  and  occasional  taxation.  The  acts  however  of 
that  dangerous  power  (the  distinctive  mark  of  a  boundless 
despotism)  have  been  alone  held  sacred.  Whence  arose  this 
preference  given  by  a  democratic  assembly  to  a  body  of 
property  deriving  its  title  from  the  most  critical  and  ob- 
noxious of  all  the  exertions  of  monarchical  authority.''  Reason 
can  furnish  nothing  to  reconcile  inconsistency;  nor  can 
partial  favour  be  accounted  for  upon  equitable  principles. 
But  the  contradiction  and  partiality  which  admit  no  justifi- 
cation, are  not  the  less  without  an  adequate  cause ;  and  that 
cause  I  do  not  think  it  difficult  to  discover. 

By  the  vast  debt  of  France  a  great  monied  interest  had 
insensibly  grown  up,  and  with  it  a  great  power.  By  the 
antient  usages  which  prevailed  in  that  kingdom,  the  general 
circulation  of  property,  and  in  particular  the  mutual  converti- 


THE   MONIED   INTEREST.  1 29 

bility  of  land  into  money,  and  of  money  into  land,  had 
always  been  a  matter  of  difficulty.  Family  settlements, 
rather  more  general  and  more  strict  than  they  are  in 
England ;  the  jus  retr actus;  the  great  mass  of  landed  pro- 
perty held  by  the  crown,  and  by  a  maxim  of  the  French 
law  held  unalienably;  the  vast  estates  of  the  ecclesiastic 
corporations ;  all  these  had  kept  the  landed  and  monied 
interests  more  separated  in  France,  less  miscible,  and  the 
owners  of  the  two  distinct  species  of  property  not  so  well 
disposed  to  each  other  as  they  are  in  this  country. 

The  monied  property  was  long  looked  on  with  rather 
an  evil  eye  by  the  people.  They  saw  it  connected  with  their 
distresses,  and  aggravating  them.  It  was  no  less  envied  by 
the  old  landed  interests,  partly  for  the  same  reasons  that 
rendered  it  obnoxious  to  the  people,  but  much  more  so  as  it 
eclipsed,  by  the  splendour  of  an  ostentatious  luxury,  the 
unendowed  pedigrees  and  naked  titles  of  several  among  the 
nobility.  Even  when  the  nobility,  which  represented  the 
more  permanent  landed  interest,  united  themselves  by  mar- 
riage (which  sometimes  was  the  case)  with  the  other  descrip- 
tion, the  wealth  which  saved  the  family  from  ruin,  was 
supposed  to  contaminate  and  degrade  it.  Thus  the  enmities 
and  heart-burnings  of  these  parties  were  encreased  even  by  the 
usual  means  by  which  discord  is  made  to  cease,  and  quarrels 
are  turned  into  friendship.  In  the  mean  time,  the  pride  of 
the  wealthy  men,  not  noble  or  newly  noble,  encreased  with  its 
cause.  They  felt  with  resentment  an  inferiority,  the  grounds 
of  which  they  did  not  acknowledge.  There  was  no  measure 
to  which  they  were  not  willing  to  lend  themselves,  in  order  to 
be  revenged  of  the  outrages  of  this  rival  pride,  and  to  exalt 
their  wealth  to  what  they  considered  as  its  natural  rank  and 
estimation.  They  struck  at  the  nobility  through  the  crown 
and  the  church.  They  attacked  them  particularly  on 
the  side  on  which  they  thought  them  the  most  vulnerable, 

VOL.  II.  K 


130  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

that  is,  the  possessions  of  the  church,  which,  through  the 
patronage  of  the  crown,  generally  devolved  upon  the  nobility. 
The  bishopricks,  and  the  great  commendatory  abbies,  were, 
with  few  exceptions,  held  by  that  order. 

In  this  state  of  real,  though  not  always  perceived  warfare 
between  the  noble  antient  landed  interest,  and  the  new 
monied  interest,  the  greatest  because  the  most  applicable 
strength  was  in  the  hands  of  the  latter.  The  monied  interest 
is  in  its  nature  more  ready  for  any  adventure;  and  its 
possessors  more  disposed  to  new  enterprizes  of  any  kind. 
Being  of  a  recent  acquisition,  it  falls  in  more  naturally  with 
any  novelties.  It  is  therefore  the  kind  of  wealth  which  will 
be  resorted  to  by  all  who  wish  for  change. 

Aloxg  with  the  monied  interest,  a  new  description  of  men 
had  grown  up,  with  whom  that  interest  soon  formed  a '  close 
and  marked  union;  I  mean  the  political  Men  of  Letters. 
Men  of  Letters,  fond  of  distinguishing  themselves,  are  rarely 
averse  to  innovation.  Since  the  decline  of  the  life  and 
greatness  of  Lewis  the  XlVth,  they  were  not  so  much 
cultivated  either  by  him,  or  by  the  regent,  or  the  successors 
to  the  crown ;  nor  were  they  engaged  to  the  court  by  favours 
and  emoluments  so  systematically  as  during  the  splendid 
period  of  that  ostentatious  and  not  impolitic  reign.  What 
they  lost  in  the  old  court  protection,  they  endeavoured  to 
make  up  by  joining  in  a  sort  of  incorporation  of  their  own ; 
to  which  the  two  academies  of  France,  and  afterwards  the 
vast  undertaking  of  the  Encyclopaedia,  carried  on  by  a 
society  of  these  gentlemen,  did  not  a  little  contribute. 

The  literary  cabal  had  some  years  ago  formed  something 
like  a  regular  plan  for  the  destruction  of  the  Christian 
religion.  This  object  they  pursued  with  a  degree  of  zeal 
which  hitherto  had  been  discovered  only  in  the  propagators 
of  some  system  of  piety.     They  were  possessed  with  a  spirit 


THE  MEN  OF  LETTERS.  I3I 

of  proselytism  in  the  most  fanatical  degree;  and  from  thence 
by  an  easy  progress,  with  the  spirit  of  persecution  according 
to  their  means.  P]  What  was  not  to  be  done  towards  their 
great  end  by  any  direct  or  immediate  act,  might  be  wrought 
by  a  longer  process  through  the  medium  of  opinion.  To 
command  that  opinion,  the  first  step  is  to  establish  a 
dominion  over  those  who  direct  it.  They  contrived  to 
possess  themselves,  with  great  method  and  perseverance,  of 
all  the  avenues  to  literary  fame.  Many  of  them  indeed  stood 
high  in  the  ranks  of  Hterature  and  science.  The  world  had 
done  them  justice ;  and  in  favour  of  general  talents  forgave 
the  evil  tendency  of  their  peculiar  principles.  This  was  true 
liberality;  which  they  returned  by  endeavouring  to  confine 
the  reputation  of  sense,  learning,  and  taste  to  themselves  or 
their  followers.  I  will  venture  to  say  that  this  narrow, 
exclusive  spirit  has  not  been  less  prejudicial  to  Hterature  and 
to  taste,  than  to  morals  and  true  philosophy.  These  Athe- 
istical fathers  have  a  bigotry  of  their  own;  and  they  have 
learnt  to  talk  against  monks  with  the  spirit  of  a  monk.  But 
in  some  things  they  are  men  of  the  world.  The  resources  of 
intrigue  are  called  in  to  supply  the  defects  of  argument  and 
wit.  To  this  system  of  literary  monopoly  was  joined  an  un- 
remitting industry  to  blacken  and  discredit  in  every  way,  and 
by  every  means,  all  those  who  did  not  hold  to  their  faction. 
To  those  who  have  observed  the  spirit  of  their  conduct,  it  has 
long  been  clear  that  nothing  was  wanted  but  the  power  of 
carrying  the  intolerance  of  the  tongue  and  of  the  pen  into  a 
persecution  which  would  strike  at  property,  liberty,  and  life. 

The  desultory  and  faint  persecution  carried  on  against 
them,  more  from  compliance  with  form  and  decency  than 
with  serious  resentment,  neither  weakened  their  strength,  nor 

[•>  This,  down  to  the  end  of  the  first  sentence  in  the  next  paragraph,  and 
some  other  parts  here  and  there,  were  inserted,  on  his  reading  the  manuscript^ 
by  my  lost  Son.'] 

K    2 


132  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

relaxed  their  efforts.  The  issue  of  the  whole  was,  that  what 
with  opposition,  and  what  with  success,  a  violent  and  malign- 
ant zeal,  of  a  kind  hitherto  unknown  in  the  world,  had  taken 
an  entire  possession  of  their  minds,  and  rendered  their  whole 
conversation,  which  otherwise  would  have  been  pleasing  and 
instructive,  perfectly  disgusting.  A  spirit  of  cabal,  intrigue, 
and  proselytism,  pervaded  all  their  thoughts,  words,  and 
actions.  And,  as  controversial  zeal  soon  turns  its  thoughts 
on  force,  they  began  to  insinuate  themselves  into  a  corres- 
pondence with  foreign  princes;  in  hopes,  through  their 
authority,  which  at  first  they  flattered,  they  might  bring  about 
the  changes  they  had  in  view.  To  them  it  was  indifferent 
whether  these  changes  were  to  be  accomplished  by  the 
thunderbolt  of  despotism,  or  by  the  earthquake  of  popular 
commotion.  The  correspondence  between  this  cabal,  and  the 
late  king  of  Prussia,  will  throw  no  small  light  upon  the  spirit 
of  all  their  proceedings  *.  For  the  same  purpose  for  which 
they  intrigued  with  princes,  they  cultivated,  in  a  distinguished 
manner,  the  monied  interest  of  France;  and  partly  through  the 
means  furnished  by  those  whose  peculiar  ofl&ces  gave  them 
the  most  extensive  and  certain  means  of  communication, 
they  carefully  occupied  all  the  avenues  to  opinion. 

Writers,  especially  when  they  act  in  a  body,  and  with  one 
direction,  have  great  influence  on  the  publick  mind;  the 
alliance  therefore  of  these  writers  with  the  monied  interest  [c] 
had  no  small  effect  in  removing  the  popular  odium  and  envy 
which  attended  that  species  of  wealth.  These  writers,  like  the 
propagators  of  all  novelties,  pretended  to  a  great  zeal  for  the 
poor,  and  the  lower  orders,  whilst  in  their  satires  they  ren- 
dered hateful,  by  every  exaggeration,  the  faults  of  courts,  of 
nobility,  and  of  priesthood.     They  became  a  sort  of  dema- 

*  I  do  not  chuse  to  shock  the  feeling  of  the  moral  reader  with  any 
quotation  of  their  vulgar,  base,  and  profane  language. 

[<=  Their  connexion  with  Ttirgot  and  almost  all  (he  people  of  thefinancel\ 


JUNCTION  OF   THE   TWO.  I33 

gogues.     They  served  as  a  link  to  unite,  in  favour  of  one 
object,  obnoxious  wealth  to  restless  and  desperate  poverty. 

As  these  two  kinds  of  men  appear  principal  leaders  in  all 
the  late  transactions,  their  junction  and  politics  will  serve  to 
account,  not  upon  any  principles  of  law  or  of  policy,  but  as  a 
cause,  for  the  general  fury  with  which  all  the  landed  property 
of  ecclesiastical  corporations  has  been  attacked;  and  the 
great  care  which,  contrary  to  their  pretended  principles,  has 
been  taken,  of  a  monied  interest  originating  from  the  author- 
ity of  the  crown.  All  the  envy  against  wealth  and  power, 
was  artificially  directed  against  other  descriptions  of  riches. 
On  what  other  principle  than  that  which  I  have  stated  can 
we  account  for  an  appearance  so  extraordinary  and  un- 
natural as  that  of  the  ecclesiastical  possessions,  which  had 
stood  so  many  successions  of  ages  and  shocks  of  civil  vio- 
lences, and  were  guarded  at  once  by  justice,  and  by  prejudice, 
being  applied  to  the  payment  of  debts,  comparatively  recent, 
invidious,  and  contracted  by  a  decried  and  subverted  govern- 
ment ? 

Was  the  public  estate  a  sufficient  stake  for  the  publick 
debts?  Assume  that  it  was  not,  and  that  a  loss  must  be 
incurred  somewhere — When  the  only  estate  lawfully  pos- 
sessed, and  which  the  contracting  parties  had  in  contem- 
plation at  the  time  in  which  their  bargain  was  made,  happens 
to  fail,  who,  according  to  the  principles  of  natural  and  legal 
equity,  ought  to  be  the  sufferer?  Certainly  it  ought  to  be 
either  the  party  who  trusted;  or  the  party  who  persuaded 
him  to  trust ;  or  both ;  and  not  third  parties  who  had  no 
concern  with  the  transaction.  Upon  any  insolvency  they 
ought  to  suffer  who  were  weak  enough  to  lend  upon  bad 
security,  or  they  who  fraudulently  held  out  a  security  that  was 
not  valid.  Laws  are  acquainted  with  no  other  rules  of 
decision.     But  by  the  new  institute  of  the  rights  of  men,  the 


134  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

only  persons,  who  in  equity  ought  to  suffer,  are  the  only 
persons  who  are  to  be  saved  harmless :  those  are  to  answer 
the  debt  who  neither  were  lenders  or  borrowers,  mortgagers 
or  mortgagees. 

What  had  the  clergy  to  do  with  these  transactions  ?  What 
had  they  to  do  with  any  publick  engagement  further  than  the 
extent  of  their  own  debt  ?  To  that,  to  be  sure,  their  estates 
were  bound  to  the  last  acre.  Nothing  can  lead  more  to  the 
true  spirit  of  the  assembly,  which  sits  for  publick  confiscation, 
with  its  new  equity  and  its  new  morality,  than  an  attention  to 
their  proceeding  with  regard  to  this  debt  of  the  clergy.  The 
body  of  confiscators,  true  to  that  monied  interest  for  which 
they  were  false  to  every  other,  have  found  the  clergy 
competent  to  incur  a  legal  debt.  Of  course  they  declared 
them  legally  entitled  to  the  property  which  their  power  of 
incurring  the  debt  and  mortgaging  the  estate  implied;  recog- 
nising the  rights  of  those  persecuted  citizens,  in  the  very  act 
in  which  they  were  thus  grossly  violated. 

If,  as  I  said,  any  persons  are  to  make  good  deficiencies  to 
the  publick  creditor,  besides  the  publick  at  large,  they  must  be 
those  who  managed  the  agreement.  Why  therefore  are  not 
the  estates  of  all  the  comptrollers  general  confiscated .''  p] 
Why  not  those  of  the  long  succession  of  ministers,  financiers, 
and  bankers  who  have  been  enriched  whilst  the  nation  was 
impoverished  by  their  dealings  and  their  counsels  ?  Why  is 
not  the  estate  of  Mr.  Laborde  declared  forfeited  rather  than 
of  the  archbishop  of  Paris,  who  has  had  nothing  to  do  in  the 
creation  or  in  the  jobbing  of  the  publick  funds  ?  Or,  if  you 
must  confiscate  old  landed  estates  in  favour  of  the  money- 
jobbers,  why  is  the  penalty  confined  to  one  description  ?  I 
do  not  know  whether  the  expences  of  the  duke  de  Choiseul 
have  left  any  thing  of  the  infinite  sums  which  he  had  derived 
from  the  bounty  of  his  master,  during  the  transactions  of  a 
[_^  Ail  have  been  conji^caled,  in  their  turn.'] 


INJUSTICE   OF   THE   CONFISCATION.  1 35 

reign  which  contributed  largely,  by  every  species  of  prodi- 
gality in  war  and  peace,  to  the  present  debt  of  France.  If 
any  such  remains,  why  is  not  this  confiscated  ?— I  remember 
to  have  been  in  Paris  during  the  time  of  the  old  government. 
I  was  there  just  after  the  duke  d'Aiguillon  had  been  snatched 
(as  it  was  generally  thought)  from  the  block  by  the  hand  of  a 
protecting  despotism.  He  was  a  minister,  and  had  some 
concern  in  the  affairs  of  that  prodigal  period.  Why  do  I  not 
see  his  estate  delivered  up  to  the  municipalities  in  which  it  is 
situated?  The  noble  family  of  Noailles  have  long  been 
servants  (meritorious  servants  I  admit)  to  the  crown  of 
France,  and  have  had  of  course  some  share  in  its  bounties. 
Why  do  I  hear  nothing  of  the  application  of  their  estates  to 
the  publick  debt  ?  Why  is  the  estate  of  the  duke  de  Roche- 
foucault  more  sacred  than  that  of  the  cardinal  de  Roche- 
foucault?  The  former  is,  I  doubt  not,  a  worthy  person; 
and  (if  it  were  not  a  sort  of  profaneness  to  talk  of  the  use,  as 
affecting  the  title  to  property)  he  makes  a  good  use  of  his 
revenues;  but  it  is  no  disrespect  to  him  to  say,  what 
authentic  information  well  warrants  me  in  saying,  that  the 
use  made  of  a  property  equally  valid,  by  his  brother  [«]  the 
cardinal  archbishop  of  Rouen,  was  far  more  laudable  and  far 
more  publick-spirited.  Can  one  hear  of  the  proscription  of 
such  persons,  and  the  confiscation  of  their  effects,  without 
indignation  and  horror  ?  He  is  not  a  man  who  does  not  feel 
such  emotions  on  such  occasions.  He  does  not  deserve  the 
name  of  a  free  man  who  will  not  express  them. 

Few  barbarous  conquerors  have  ever  made  so  terrible  a 
revolution  in  property.  None  of  the  heads  of  the  Roman 
factions,  when  they  established  *  crudelem  illam  hastam '  m 
all  their  auctions  of  rapine,  have  ever  set  up  to  sale  the 

[»  Not  his  brother,  nor  any  near  relation ;  but  this  mistake  does  not  affect 
the  argument.'] 


136  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

goods  of  the  conquered  citizen  to  such  an  enormous  amount. 
It  must  be  allowed  in  favour  of  those  tyrants  of  antiquity, 
that  what  was  done  by  them  could  hardly  be  said  to  be  done 
in  cold  blood.  Their  passions  were  inflamed,  their  tempers 
soured,  their  understandings  confused,  with  the  spirit  of  re- 
venge, with  the  innumerable  reciprocated  and  recent  inflic- 
tions and  retaliations  of  blood  and  rapine.  They  were 
driven  beyond  all  bounds  of  moderation  by  the  apprehen- 
sion of  the  return  to  power  with  the  return  of  property 
to  the  families  of  those  they  had  injured  beyond  all 
hope  of  forgiveness. 

These  Roman  confiscators,  who  were  yet  only  in  the 
elements  of  tyranny,  and  were  not  instructed  in  the  rights  of 
men  to  exercise  all  sorts  of  cruelties  on  each  other  without 
provocation,  thought  it  necessary  to  spread  a  sort  of  colour 
over  their  injustice.  They  considered  the  vanquished  party 
as  composed  of  traitors  who  had  borne  arms,  or  otherwise 
had  acted  with  hostility  against  the  commonwealth.  They 
regarded  them  as  persons  who  had  forfeited  their  property 
by  their  crimes.  With  you,  in  your  improved  state  of  the 
human  mind,  there  was  no  such  formality.  You  seized  upon 
five  millions  sterling  of  annual  rent,  and  turned  forty  or  fifty 
thousand  human  creatures  out  of  their  houses,  because 
*  such  was  your  pleasure.'  The  tyrant,  Harry  the  Eighth  of 
England,  as  he  was  not  better  enlightened  than  the  Roman 
Marius's  and  Sylla's,  and  had  not  studied  in  your  new 
schools,  did  not  know  what  an  effectual  instrument  of  des- 
potism was  to  be  found  in  that  grand  magazine  of  offensive 
weapons,  the  rights  of  men.  When  he  resolved  to  rob  the 
abbies,  as  the  club  of  the  Jacobins  have  robbed  all  the  eccle- 
siastics, he  began  by  setting  on  foot  a  commission  to 
examine  into  the  crimes  and  abuses  which  prevailed  in  those 
communities.  As  it  might  be  expected,  his  commission  re- 
ported truths,  exaggerations,  and  falsehoods.     But,  truly  or 


HENRY   THE   EIGHTH.  J^J 

falsely,  it  reported  abuses  and  offences.  However,  as  abuses 
might  be  corrected,  as  every  crime  of  persons  does  not  infer 
a  forfeiture  with  regard  to  communities,  and  as  property,  in 
that  dark  age,  was  not  discovered  to  be  a  creature  of  preju- 
dice, all  those  abuses  (and  there  were  enough  of  them)  were 
hardly  thought  sufficient  ground  for  such  a  confiscation  as  it 
was  for  his  purposes  to  make.  He  therefore  procured  the 
formal  surrender  of  these  estates.  All  these  operose  pro- 
ceedings were  adopted  by  one  of  the  most  decided  tyrants  in 
the  rolls  of  history,  as  necessary  preliminaries,  before  he 
could  venture,  by  bribing  the  members  of  his  two  servile 
houses  with  a  share  of  the  spoil,  and  holding  out  to  them  an 
eternal  immunity  from  taxation,  to  demand  a  confirmation  of 
his  iniquitous  proceedings  by  an  act  of  parliament.  Had 
fate  reserved  him  to  our  times,  four  technical  terms  would 
have  done  his  business,  and  saved  him  all  this  trouble ;  he 
needed  nothing  more  than  one  short  form  of  incantation — 
''Philosophy,  Light,  Liberality,  the  Rights  of  Men! 

I  can  say  nothing  in  praise  of  those  acts  of  tyranny,  which 
no  voice  has  hitherto  ever  commended  under  any  of  their 
false  colours ;  yet  in  these  false  colours  an  homage  was  paid 
by  despotism  to  justice.  The  power  which  was  above  all 
fear  and  all  remorse  was  not  set  above  all  shame.  Whilst 
Shame  keeps  its  watch.  Virtue  is  not  wholly  extinguished  in 
the  heart;  nor  will  Moderation  be  utterly  exiled  from  the 
minds  of  tyrants. 

I  believe  every  honest  man  sympathizes  in  his  reflections 
with  our  political  poet  on  that  occasion,  and  will  pray  to 
avert  the  omen  whenever  these  acts  of  rapacious  despotism 
present  themselves  to  his  view  or  his  imagination: 

'May  no  such  storm 


Fall  on  our  times,  where  ruin  must  reform. 
Tell  me  (my  muse)  what  monstrous,  dire  offence, 
What  crimes  could  any  Christian  king  incense 
To  such  a  rage?     Was't  luxury  or  lust? 


138  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

Was  he  so  temperate,  so  chaste,  so  just? 

Were  these  their  crimes?  they  were  his  own  much  more; 

But  wealth  is  crime  enough  to  him  that's  poor*,' 

This  same  wealth,  which  is  at  all  times  treason  and  hse 
nation  to  indigent  and  rapacious  despotism,  under  all  modes 
of  polity,  was  your  temptation  to  violate  property,  law,  and 
religion,  united  in  one  object.  But  was  the  state  of  France 
so  wretched  and  undone,  that  no  other  resource  but  rapine 
remained  to  preserve  its  existence  ?     On  this  point  I  wish  to 

*The  rest  of  the  passage  is  this — 

•Who  having  spent  the  treasures  of  his  crown, 
Condemns  their  luxury  to  feed  his  own. 
And  yet  this  act,  to  varnish  o'er  the  shame 
Of  sacrilege,  must  bear  Devotion's  name. 
No  crime  so  bold,  but  would  be  understood 
A  real,  or  at  least  a  seeming  good. 
Who  fears  not  to  do  ill,  yet  fears  the  name  ; 
And,  free  from  conscience,  is  a  slave  to  fame. 
Thus  he  the  church  at  once  protects,  and  spoils: 
But  princes'  swords  are  sharper  than  their  styles. 
And  thus  to  th'  ages  past  he  makes  amends, 
Their  charity  destroys,  their  faith  defends. 
Then  did  Religion  in  a  lazy  cell, 
In  empty  aery  contemplations  dwell ; 
And,  like  the  block,  unmoved  lay :  but  ours, 
As  much  too  active,  like  the  stork  devours. 
Is  there  no  temprate  region  can  be  known, 
Betwixt  their  frigid,  and  our  torrid  zone? 
Could  we  not  wake  from  that  lethargic  dream, 
But  to  be  restless  in  a  worse  extreme? 
And  for  that  lethargy  was  there  no  cure. 
But  to  be  cast  into  a  calenture? 
Can  knowledge  have  no  bound,  but  must  advance 
So  far,  to  make  us  wish  for  ignorance  ? 
And  rather  in  the  dark  to  grope  our  way. 
Than,  led  by  a  false  guide,  to  err  by  day? 
Who  sees  these  dismal  heaps,  but  would  demand. 
What  barbarous  invader  sack'd  the  land? 
But  when  he  hears,  no  Goth,  no  Turk  did  bring 
This  desolation,  but  a  Christian  king ; 
When  nothing,  but  the  name  of  zeal,  appears 
'Twixt  our  best  actions,  and  the  worst  of  theirs, 
What  does  he  think  our  sacrilege  would  spare. 
When  such  th'  effects  of  our  devotion  are?' 

Cooper's  Hill,  by  Sir  John  Denham. 


THE  CONFISCATION  UNNECESSARF.  I39 

receive  some  information.  When  the  states  met,  was  the 
condition  of  the  finances  of  France  such,  that,  after  oecono- 
mising  on  principles  of  justice  and  mercy  through  all  depart- 
ments, no  fair  repartition  of  burthens  upon  all  the  orders 
could  possibly  restore  them  ?  If  such  an  equal  imposition 
would  have  been  sufficient,  you  well  know  it  might  easily 
have  been  made.  Mr.  Necker,  in  the  budget  which  he  laid 
before  the  Orders  assembled  at  Versailles,  made  a  detailed 
exposition  of  the  state  of  the  French  nation  *. 

If  we  give  credit  to  him,  it  was  not  necessary  to  have 
recourse  to  any  new  impositions  whatsoever,  to  put  the 
receipts  of  France  on  a  balance  with  its  expences.  He 
stated  the  permanent  charges  of  all  descriptions,  including 
the  interest  of  a  new  loan  of  four  hundred  millions,  at 
531,444,000  livres;  the  fixed  revenue  at  475,294,000, 
making  the  deficiency  56,150,000,  or  short  of  2,200,000 
sterling.  But  to  balance  it,  he  brought  forward  savings  and 
improvements  of  revenue  (considered  as  entirely  certain) 
to  rather  more  than  the  amount  of  that  deficiency ;  and  he 
concludes  with  these  emphatical  words  (p.  39)  '  Quel  pays, 
INIessieurs,  que  celui,  ou,  sans  impMs  et  avec  de  simples  objets 
inappergus,  on  peut  faire  disparoitre  un  deficit  qui  a  fait  tant 
de  bruit  en  Europe/  As  to  the  reimbursement,  the  sinking 
of  debt,  and  the  other  great  objects  of  public  credit  and 
political  arrangement  indicated  in  Mons.  Necker's  speech, 
no  doubt  could  be  entertained,  but  that  a  very  moderate  and 
proportioned  assessment  on  the  citizens  without  distinction 
would  have  provided  for  all  of  them  to  the  fullest  extent  of 
their  demand. 

If  this  representation  of  Mons.  Necker  was  false,  then  the 
assembly  are  in  the  highest  degree  culpable  for  having  forced 
the  king  to  accept   as  his  minister,  and  since  the  king's 

*  Rapport  de  Mons.  le  Directeur-gen^ral  des  finances,  fait  par  ordre 
du  Roi  h.  Versailles.    Mai  5,  1789. 


140  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

deposilion,  for  having  employed  as  their  minister,  a  man  who 
had  been  capable  of  abusing  so  notoridhsly  the  confidence 
of  his  master  and  their  own  ;  in  a  matter  too  of  the  highest 
moment,  and  directly  appertaining  to  his  particular  office. 
But  if  the  representation  was  exact  (as,  having  always,  along 
with  you,  conceived  a  high  degree  of  respect  for  Mr.  Necker, 
I  make  no  doubt  it  was)  then  what  can  be  said  in  favour  of 
those,  who,  instead  of  moderate,  reasonable,  and  general 
contribution,  have  in  cold  blood,  and  impelled  by  no  neces- 
sity, had  recourse  to  a  partial  and  cruel  confiscation  ? 

Was  that  contribution  refused  on  a  pretext  of  privilege, 
either  on  the  part  of  the  clergy  or  on  that  of  the  nobility  ? 
No  certainly.  As  to  the  clergy,  they  even  ran  before  the 
wishes  of  the  third  order.  Previous  to  the  meeting  of  the 
states,  they  had  in  all  their  instructions  expressly  directed 
their  deputies  to  renounce  every  immunity,  which  put  them 
upon  a  footing  distinct  from  the  condition  of  their  fellow- 
subjects.  In  this  renunciation  the  clergy  were  even  more 
explicit  than  the  nobility. 

But  let  us  suppose  that  the  deficiency  had  remained  at  the 
56  millions,  (or  £2,200,000  sterling)  as  at  first  stated  by 
Mr.  Necker.  Let  us  allow  that  all  the  resources  he  opposed 
to  that  deficiency  were  impudent  and  groundless  fictions; 
and  that  the  assembly  (or  their  lords  of  articles*  at  the 
Jacobins)  were  from  thence  justified  in  laying  the  whole 
burthen  of  that  deficiency  on  the  clergy, — ^yet  allowing  all 
this,  a  necessity  of  £2,200,000  sterling  will  not  support  a 
confiscation  to  the  amount  of  five  millions.  The  imposition 
of  £2,200,000  on  the  clergy,  as  partial,  would  have,  been 
oppressive  and  unjust,  but  it  would  not  have  been  altogether 

*  In  the  constitution  of  Scotland  during  the  Stuart  reigns,  a  com- 
mittee sat  for  preparing  bills;  and  none  could  pass  but  those 
previously  approved  by  them.  This  committee  was  called  lords  of 
articles. 


TAXES  PAID   BY   THE   CLERGY  AND  NOBLESSE.    141 

ruinous  to  those  on  whom  it  was  imposed ;  and  therefore  it 
would  not  have  answered  the  real  purpose  of  the  managers. 

Perhaps  persons,  unacquainted  with  the  state  of  France, 
on  hearing  the  clergy  and  the  noblesse  were  privileged  in 
point  of  taxation,  may  be  led  to  imagine,  that  previous  to  the 
revolution  these  bodies  had  contributed  nothing  to  the  state. 
This  is  a  great  mistake.  They  certainly  did  not  contribute 
equally  with  each  other,  nor  either  of  them  equally  with  the 
commons.  They  both  however  contributed  largely.  Neither 
nobility  nor  clergy  enjoyed  any  exemption  from  the  excise 
on  consumable  commodities,  from  duties  of  custom,  or  from 
any  of  the  other  numerous  indirect  impositions,  which  in 
France  as  well  as  here,  make  so  very  large  a  proportion  of 
all  payments  to  the  public.  The  noblesse  paid  the  capita- 
tion. They  paid  also  a  land-tax,  called  the  twentieth  penny, 
to  the  height  sometimes  of  three,  sometimes  of  four  shillings 
in  the  pound  ;  both  of  them  direct  impositions  of  no  light 
nature,  and  no  trivial  produce.  The  clergy  of  the  provinces 
annexed  by  conquest  to  France,  which  in  extent  make  about 
an  eighth  part  of  the  whole,  but  in  wealth  a  much  larger  pro- 
portion, paid  likewise  to  the  capitation  and  the  twentieth 
penny,  at  the  rate  paid  by  the  nobility.  The  clergy  in  the 
old  provinces  did  not  pay  the  capitation ;  but  they  had  re- 
deemed themselves  at  the  expence  of  about  24  millions,  or  a 
little  more  than  a  million  sterling.  They  were  exempted 
from  the  twentieths;  but  then  they  made  free  gifts;  they 
contracted  debts  for  the  state ;  and  they  were  subject  to 
some  other  charges,  the  whole  computed  at  about  a  thirteenth 
part  of  their  clear  income.  They  ought  to  have  paid  an- 
nually about  forty  thousand  pounds  more,  to  put  them  on  a 
par  with  the  contribution  of  the  nobility. 

When  the  terrors  of  this  tremendous  proscription  hung 
over  the  clergy,  they  made  an  offer  of  a  contribution,  through 
the  archbishop  of  Aix,  which,  for  its  extravagance,  ought 


142  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

not  to  have  been  accepted.  But  it  was  evidently  and 
obviously  more  advantageous  to  the  public  creditor,  than 
any  thing  which  could  rationally  be  promised  by  the  confis- 
cation. Why  was  it  not  accepted  ?  The  reason  is  plain — 
There  was  no  desire  that  the  church  should  be  brought  to 
serve  the  state.  The  service  of  the  state  was  made  a  pretext 
to  destroy  the  church.  In  their  way  to  the  destruction  of 
the  church  they  would  not  scruple  to  destroy  their  country : 
and  they  have  destroyed  it.  One  great  end  in  the  project 
would  have  been  defeated,  if  the  plan  of  extortion  had  been 
adopted  in  lieu  of  the  scheme  of  confiscation.  The  new 
landed  interest  connected  with  the  new  republic,  and  con- 
nected with  it  for  its  very  being,  could  not  have  been  created. 
This  was  among  the  reasons  why  that  extravagant  ransom 
was  not  accepted. 

The  madness  of  the  project  of  confiscation,  on  the  plan 
that  was  first  pretended,  soon  became  apparent.  To  bring 
this  unwieldly  mass  of  landed  property,  enlarged  by  the  con- 
fiscation of  all  the  vast  landed  domain  of  the  crown,  at  once 
into  market,  was  obviously  to  defeat  the  profits  proposed  by 
the  confiscation,  by  depreciating  the  value  of  those  lands, 
and  indeed  of  all  the  landed  estates  throughout  France. 
Such  a  sudden  diversion  of  all  its  circulating  money  from 
trade  to  land,  must  be  an  additional  mischief.  What  step 
was  taken  ?  Did  the  assembly,  on  becoming  sensible  of  the 
inevitable  ill  effects  of  their  projected  sale,  revert  to  the  offers 
of  the  clergy  ?  No  distress  could  oblige  them  to  travel  in  a 
course  which  was  disgraced  by  any  appearance  of  justice. 
Giving  over  all  hopes  from  a  general  immediate  sale,  another 
project  seems  to  have  succeeded.  They  proposed  to  take 
stock  in  exchange  for  the  church  lands.  In  that  project 
great  difficulties  arose  in  equalizing  the  objects  to  be  ex- 
changed.    Other  obstacles  also  presented  themselves,  which 


01  AIL  nunmHL  ounuui-. 

Los  Atreeles  Cat. 
BISTORY  OF   THE   CONFISCATION.  J 43 

threw  them  back  again  upon  some  project  of  sale.  The 
municipalities  had  taken  an  alarm.  They  would  not  hear  of 
transferring  the  whole  plunder  of  the  kingdom  to  the  stock- 
holders in  Paris.  Many  of  those  municipalities  had  been 
upon  system  reduced  to  the  most  deplorable  indigence. 
Money  was  no  where  to  be  seen.  They  were  therefore  led 
to  the  point  that  was  so  ardently  desired.  They  panted  for 
a  currency  of  any  kind  which  might  revive  their  perishing 
industry.  The  municipalities  were  then  to  be  admitted  to  a 
share  in  the  spoil,  which  evidently  rendered  the  first  scheme, 
if  ever  it  had  been  seriously  entertained,  altogether  imprac- 
ticable. Publick  exigencies  pressed  upon  all  sides.  The 
minister  of  finance  reiterated  his  call  for  supply  with  a  most 
urgent,  anxious,  and  boding  voice.  Thus  pressed  on  all 
sides  instead  of  the  first  plan  of  converting  their  bankers 
into  bishops  and  abbots,  instead  of  paying  the  old  debt,  they 
contracted  a  new  debt,  at  3  per  cent.,  creating  a  new  paper 
currency,  founded  on  an  eventual  sale  of  the  church  lands. 
They  issued  this  paper  currency  to  satisfy  in  the  first  in- 
stance chiefly  the  demands  made  upon  them  by  the  Bank  of 
discount,  the  great  machine,  or  paper-mill,  of  their  fictitious 
wealth. 

The  spoil  of  the  church  was  now  become  the  only 
resource  of  all  their  operations  in  finance ;  the  vital  principle 
of  all  their  politics ;  the  sole  security  for  the  existence  of 
their  power.  It  was  necessary  by  all,  even  the  most  violent 
means,  to  put  every  individual  on  the  same  bottom,  and  to 
bind  the  nation  in  one  guilty  interest  to  uphold  this  act,  and 
the  authority  of  those  by  whom  it  was  done.  In  order  to 
force  the  most  reluctant  into  a  participation  of  their  pillage, 
they  rendered  their  paper  circulation  compulsory  in  all 
payments.  Those  who  consider  the  general  tendency  of 
their  schemes  to  this  one  object  as  a  centre;  and  a  centre 
from  which  afterwards  all  their  measures  radiate,  will  not 


144  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

think  that  I  dwell  too  long  upon  this  part  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  national  assembly. 

To  cut  off  all  appearance  of  connection  between  the 
crown  and  publick  justice,  and  to  bring  the  whole  under 
implicit  obedience  to  the  dictators  in  Paris,  the  old  inde- 
pendent judicature  of  the  parliaments,  with  all  its  merits,  and 
all  its  faults,  was  wholly  abolished.  Whilst  the  parliaments 
existed,  it  was  evident  that  the  people  might  some  time 
or  other  come  to  resort  to  them,  and  rally  under  the  standard 
of  their  antient  laws.  It  became  however  a  matter  of  con- 
sideration that  the  magistrates  and  officers,  in  the  courts  now 
abolished,  had  purchased  their  places  at  a  very  high  rate,  for 
which,  as  well  as  for  the  duty  they  performed,  they  received 
but  a  very  low  return  of  interest.  Simple  confiscation  is  a 
boon  only  for  the  clergy ;  to  the  lawyers  some  appearances 
of  equity  are  to  be  observed ;  and  they  are  to  receive  com- 
pensation to  an  immense  amount.  Their  compensation 
becomes  part  of  the  national  debt,  for  the  liquidation  of 
which  there  is  the  one  exhaustless  fund.  The  lawyers 
are  to  obtain  their  compensation  in  the  new  church  paper, 
which  is  to  march  with  the  new  principles  of  judicature 
and  legislature.  The  dismissed  magistrates  are  to  take 
their  share  of  martyrdom  with  the  ecclesiastics,  or  to  re- 
ceive their  own  property  from  such  a  fund  and  in  such  a 
manner,  as  all  those,  who  have  been  seasoned  with  the 
antient  principles  of  jurisprudence,  and  had  been  the  sworn 
guardians  of  property,  must  look  upon  with  horror.  Even 
the  clergy  are  to  receive  their  miserable  allowance  out  of  the 
depreciated  paper  which  is  stamped  with  the  indelible 
character  of  sacrilege,  and  with  the  symbols  of  their  own 
ruin,  or  they  must  starve.  So  violent  an  outrage  upon 
credit,  property,  and  liberty,  as  this  compulsory  paper 
currency,  has  seldom  been  exhibited  by  the  alliance  of 
bankruptcy  and  tyranny,  at  any  time,  or  in  any  nation. 


THE  FRENCH  MONARCHY.  J4^ 

In  the  course  of  all  these  operations,  at  length  comes  out 
the  grand  arcanum; — that  in  reality,  and  in  a  fair  sense, 
the  lands  of  the  church,  so  far  as  any  thing  certain  can 
be  gathered  from  their  proceedings,  are  not  to  be  sold  at  all. 
By  the  late  resolutions  of  the  national  assembly,  they  are 
indeed  to  be  delivered  to  the  highest  bidder.  But  it  is  to  be 
observed,  that  a  certaiit  portion  only  of  the  purchase  money  is  to 
be  laid  down.  A  period  of  twelve  years  is  to  be  given  for  the 
payment  of  the  rest  The  philosophic  purchasers  are  there- 
fore, on  payment  of  a  sort  of  fine,  to  be  put  instantly  into 
possession  of  the  estate.  It  becomes  in  some  respects  a  sort 
of  gift  to  them ;  to  be  held  on  the  feudal  tenure  of  zeal  to  the 
new  establishment.  This  project  is  evidently  to  let  in  a  body 
of  purchasers  without  money.  The  consequence  will  be, 
that  these  purchasers,  or  rather  grantees,  will  pay,  not  only 
from  the  rents  as  they  accrue,  which  might  as  well  be  re- 
ceived by  the  state,  but  from  the  spoil  of  the  materials  of 
buildings,  from  waste  in  woods,  and  from  whatever  money, 
by  hands  habituated  to  the  gripings  of  usury,  they  can  wring 
from  the  miserable  peasant.  He  is  to  be  delivered  over  to 
the  mercenary  and  arbitrary  discretion  of  men,  who  will  be 
stimulated  to  every  species  of  extortion  by  the  growing 
demands  on  the  growing  profits  of  an  estate  held  under  the 
precarious  settlement  of  a  new  politifcal  system. 

When  all  the  frauds,  impostures,  violences,  rapines,  burn- 
ings, murders,  confiscations,  compulsory  paper  currencies, 
and  every  description  of  tyranny  and  cruelty  employed  to 
bring  about  and  to  uphold  this  revolution,  have  their  natural 
effect,  that  is,  to  shock  the  moral  sentiments  of  all  virtuous 
and  sober  minds,  the  abettors  of  this  philosophic  system 
immediately  strain  their  throats  in  a  declamation  against  the 
old  monarchical  government  of  France.  When  they  have 
rendered  that  deposed  power  sufficiently  black,  they  then 

VOL.   u.  L 


146  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

proceed  in  argument,  as  if  all  those  who  disapprove  of  their 
new  abuses,  must  of  course  be  partizans  of  the  old;  that 
those  who  reprobate  their  crude  and  violent  schemes  of 
liberty  ought  to  be  treated  as  advocates  for  servitude.  I 
admit  that  their  necessities  do  compel  them  to  this  base  and 
contemptible  fraud.  Nothing  can  reconcile  men  to  their 
proceedings  and  projects  but  the  supposition  that  there  is  no 
third  option  between  them,  and  some  tyranny  as  odious  as 
can  be  furnished  by  the  records  of  history,  or  by  the  invention 
of  poets.  This  prattling  of  theirs  hardly  deserves  the  name 
of  sophistry.  It  is  nothing  but  plain  impudence.  Have 
these  gentlemen  never  heard,  in  the  whole  circle  of  the 
worlds  of  theory  and  practice,  of  any  thing  between  the 
despotism  of  the  monarch  and  the  despotism  of  the  multi- 
tude? Have  they  never  heard  of  a  monarchy  directed  by 
laws,  controlled  and  balanced  by  the  great  hereditary  wealth 
and  hereditary  dignity  of  a  nation ;  and  both  again  controlled 
by  a  judicious  check  from  the  reason  and  feeling  of  the 
people  at  large  acting  by  a  suitable  and  permanent  organ  ? 
Is  it  then  impossible  that  a  man  may  be  found  who,  without 
criminal  ill  intention,  or  pitiable  absurdity,  shall  prefer  such  a 
mixed  and  tempered  government  to  either  of  the  extremes ; 
and  who  may  repute  that  nation  to  be  destitute  of  all  wisdom 
and  of  all  virtue,  which, 'having  in  its  choice  to  obtain  such 
a  government  with  ease,  or  rather  to  confirm  it  when  actually 
possessed,  thought  proper  to  commit  a  thousand  crimes,  and  to 
subject  their  country  to  a  thousand  evils,  in  order  to  avoid  it? 
Is  it  then  a  truth  so  universally  acknowledged,  that  a  pure 
democracy  is  the  only  tolerable  form  into  which  human 
society  can  be  thrown,  that  a  man  is  not  permitted  to  hesi- 
tate about  its  merits,  without  the  suspicion  of  being  a  friend 
to  tyranny,  that  is,  of  being  a  foe  to  mankind  ? 

I  do  not  know  under  what  description  to  class  the  present 
ruling  authority  in  France.     It  affects  to  be  a  pure  demo- 


DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENTS.  I47 

cracy,  though  I  think  it  in  a  direct  train  of  becoming  shortly 
a  mischievous  and  ignoble  oligarchy.  But  for  the  present  I 
admit  it  to  be  a  contrivance  of  the  nature  and  effect  of  what 
it  pretends  to.  I  reprobate  no  form  of  government  merely 
upon  abstract  principles.  There  may  be  situations  in  which 
the  purely  democratic  form  will  become  necessary.  There 
may  be  some  (very  few,  and  very  particularly  circumstanced) 
where  it  would  be  clearly  desireable.  This  I  do  not  take  to  be 
the  case  of  France,  or  of  any  other  great  country.  Until  now, 
we  have  seen  no  examples  of  considerable  democracies. 
The  antients  were  better  acquainted  with  them.  Not  being 
wholly  unread  in  the  authors,  who  had  seen  the  most  of  those 
constitutions,  and  who  best  understood  them,  I  cannot  help 
concurring  with  their  opinion,  that  an  absolute  democracy, 
no  more  than  absolute  monarchy,'  is  to  be  reckoned  among 
the  legitimate  forms  of  government.  They  think  it  rather  the 
corruption  and  degeneracy,  than  the  sound  constitution  of  a 
republic.  If  I  recollect  rightly,  Aristotle  observes,  that  a 
democracy  has  many  striking  points  of  resemblance  with  a 
tyranny  *.  Of  this  I  am  certain,  that  in  a  democracy,  the 
majority  of  the  citizens  is  capable  of  exercising  the  most 
cruel  oppressions  upon  the  minority,  whenever  strong  divi- 
sions prevail  in  that  kind  of  polity,  as  they  often  must ;  and 

*  When  I  wrote  this  I  quoted  from  memory,  after  many  years  had 
elapsed  from  my  reading  the  passage.  A  learned  friend  has  found  it, 
and  it  is  as  follows : 

To  -^Oos  TO  avTo,  Kal  aficpai  hia-rroTiKOL  tSjv  PeXriSvajv,  Kal  to  rf/rjcfiiffijaTa, 
wavep  iKii  ra  kTriTajf^aTa'  Kal  6  St] f^aycuyos  Kal  6  KoKa^,  ol  avrol  Kal  dva- 
Xoyov  Kot  fi6.\i(TTa  fKarepot  trap'  tKarfpois  Icrxvovaiv,  ol  /Jiev  «oA.a«€S 
irapa  rvpavvois,  ol  5 6  Brj/xaycoyol  vapd  tois  Srjfiots  tois  toiovtois. — 

'  The  ethical  character  is  the  same ;  both  exercise  despotism  over  the 
better  class  of  citizens ;  and  decrees  are  in  the  one,  what  ordinances  and 
arrets  are  in  the  other  :  the  demagogue  too,  and  the  court  favourite,  are 
not  unfrequently  the  same  identical  men,  and  always  bear  a  close 
analogy ;  and  these  have  the  principal  power,  eacli  in  their  respective 
forms  of  government,  favourites  with  the  absolute  monarch,  and  dema- 
gogues with  a  people  such  as  I  have  described.'  Arist.  Politic,  lib.  iv. 
cap.  4. 

L   2 


148  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

that  oppression  of  the  minority  will  extend  to  far  greater 
numbers,  and  will  be  carried  on  with  much  greater  fury,  than 
can  almost  ever  be  apprehended  from  the  dominion  of  a 
single  sceptre.  In  such  a  popular  persecution,  individual 
sufferers  are  in  a  much  more  deplorable  condition  than  in 
any  other.  Under  a  cruel  prince  they  have  the  balmy  com- 
passion pf  mankind  to  assuage  the  smart  of  their  wounds; 
they  have  the  plaudits  of  the  people  to  animate  their  gener- 
ous constancy  under  their  sufferings:  but  those  who  are 
subjected  to  wrong  under  multitudes,  are  deprived  of  all 
external  consolation.  They  seem  deserted  by  mankind; 
overpowered  by  a  conspiracy  of  their  whole  species. 

But  admitting  democracy  not  to  have  that  inevitable 
tendency  to  party  tyranny,  which  I  suppose  it  to  have,  and 
admitting  it  to  possess  as  much  good  in  it  when  unmixed,  as 
I  am  sure  it  possesses  when  compounded  with  other  forms ; 
does  monarchy,  on  its  part,  contain  nothing  at  all  to  recom- 
mend it?  I  do  not  often  quote  Bolingbroke,  nor  have  his 
works  in  general,  left  any  permanent  impression  on  my  mind. 
He  is  a  presumptuous  and  a  superficial  writer.  But  he  has 
one  observation,  which,  in  my  opinion,  is  not  without  depth 
and  solidity.  He  says,  that  he  prefers  a  monarchy  to  other 
governments;  because  you  can  better  ingraft  any  description  of 
republic  on  a  monarchy  than  any  thing  of  monarchy  upon  the 
republican  forms.  I  think  him  perfectly  in  the  right.  The 
fact  is  so  historically;  and  it  agrees  well  with  the  speculation. 

I  know  how  easy  a  topic  it  is  to  dwell  on  the  faults  of 
departed  greatness.  By  a  revolution  in  the  state,  the  fawning 
sycophant  of  yesterday  is  converted  into  the  austere  critic  of 
the  present  hour.  But  steady  independant  minds,  when  they 
have  an  object  of  so  serious  a  concern  to  mankind  as  govern- 
ment, under  their  contemplation,  will  disdain  to  assume  the 
part  of  satirists  and  declaimers.  They  will  judge  of  human 
institutions  as  they  do  of  human  characters.     They  will  sort 


DESTRUCTION  NOT  REFORMATION,  I49 

out  the  good  from  the  evil,  which  is  mixed  in  mortal  insti- 
tutions as  it  is  in  mortal  men. 

Your  government  in  France,  though  usually,  and  I  think 
justly,  reputed  the  best  of  the  unqualified  or  ill- qualified 
monarchies,  was  still  full  of  abuses.  These  abuses  accumu- 
lated in  a  length  of  time,  as  they  must  accumulate  in  every 
monarchy  not  under  the  constant  inspection  of  a  popular 
representative.  I  am  no  stranger  to  the  faults  and  defects  of 
the  subverted  government  of  France ;  and  I  think  I  am  not 
inclined  by  nature  or  policy  to  make  a  panegyric  upon  any 
thing  which  is  a  just  and  natural  object  of  censure.  But  the 
question  is  not  now  of  the  vices  of  that  monarchy,  but  of  its 
existence.  Is  it  then  true,  that  the  French  government  was 
such  as  to  be  incapable  or  undeserving  of  reform ;  so  that  it 
was  of  absolute  necessity  the  whole  fabric  should  be  at  once 
pulled  down,  and  the  area  cleared  for  the  erection  of  a 
theoretic  experimental  edifice  in  its  place  ?  All  France  was 
of  a  different  opinion  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  1789. 
The  instructions  to  the  representatives  to  the  states-general, 
from  every  district  in  that  kingdom,  were  filled  with  projects 
for  the  reformation  of  that  government,  without  the  remotest 
suggestion  of  a  design  to  destroy  it.  Had  such  a  design 
been  then  even  insinuated,  I  believe  there  would  have  been 
but  one  voice,  and  that  voice  for  rejecting  it  with  scorn  and 
horror.  Men  have  been  sometimes  led  by  degrees,  some- 
times hurried  into  things,  of  which,  if  they  could  have  seen 
the  whole  together,  they  never  would  have  permitted  the 
most  remote  approach.  When  those  instructions  were  given, 
there  was  no  question  but  that  abuses  existed,  and  that  they 
demanded  a  reform;  nor  is  there  now.  In  the  interval 
between  the  instructions  and  the  revolution,  things  changed 
their  shape;  and  in  consequence  of  that  change,  the  true 
question  at  present  is,  Whether  those  who  would  have 
reformed,  or  those  who  have  destroyed,  are  in  the  right? 


150  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

To  hear  some  men  speak  of  the  late  monarchy  of  France, 
you  would  imagine  that  they  were  talking  of  Persia  bleeding 
under  the  ferocious  sword  of  Tsehmas  Kouli  Khan;  or  at 
least  describing  the  barbarous  anarchic  despotism  of  Turkey, 
where  the  finest  countries  in  the  most  genial  climates  in  the 
world  are  wasted  by  peace  more  than  any  countries  have 
been  worried  by  war ;  where  arts  are  unknown,  where 
manufactures  languish,  where  science  is  extinguished,  where 
agriculture  decays,  where  the  human  race  itself  melts  away 
and  perishes  under  the  eye  of  the  observer.  Was  this  the 
case  of  France  ?  I  have  no  way  of  determining  the  question 
but  by  a  reference  to  facts.  Facts  do  not  support  this 
resemblance.  Along  with  much  evil,  there  is  some  good  in 
monarchy  itself;  and  some  corrective  to  its  evil,  from  re- 
ligion, from  laws,  from  manners,  from  opinions,  the  French 
monarchy  must  have  received ;  which  rendered  it  (though  by 
no  means  a  free,  and  therefore  by  no  means  a  good  consti- 
tution) a  despotism  rather  in  appearance  than  in  reality. 

Among  the  standards  upon  which  the  effects  of  govern- 
ment on  any  country  are  to  be  estimated,  I  must  consider 
the  state  of  its  population  as  not  the  least  certain.  No 
country  in  which  population  flourishes,  and  is  in  progressive 
improvement,  can  be  under  a  very  mischievous  government. 
About  sixty  years  ago,  the  Intendants  of  the  generalities  of 
France  made,  with  other  matters,  a  report  of  the  population 
of  their  several  districts.  I  have  not  the  books,  which  are 
very  voluminous,  by  me,  nor  do  1  know  where  to  procure 
them  (I  am  obliged  to  speak  by  memory,  and  therefore  the 
less  positively)  but  I  think  the  population  of  France  was  by 
them,  even  at  that  period,  estimated  at  twenty-two  millions  of 
souls.  At  the  end  of  the  last  century  it  had  been  generally 
calculated  at  eighteen.  On  either  of  these  estimations 
France  was  not  ill-peopled.  Mr.  Necker,  who  is  an  authority 
for  his  own  time  at  least  equal  to  the  Intendants  for  theirs, 


POPULATION  OF  FRANCE.  I5I 

reckons,  and  upon  apparently  sure  principles,  the  people  of 
France,  in  the  year  1780,  at  twenty-four  millions  six  hundred 
and  seventy  thousand.  But  was  this  the  probable  ultimate 
term  under  the  old  establishment?  Dr.  Price  is  of  opinion, 
that  the  growth  of  population  in  France  was  by  no  means  at 
its  acm^  in  that  year.  I  certainly  defer  to  Dr.  Price's  authority 
a  good  deal  more  in  these  speculations,  than  I  do  in  his 
general  politics.  This  gentleman,  taking  ground  on  Mr. 
Necker's  data,  is  very  confident,  that  since  the  period  of  that 
minister's  calculation,  the  French  population  has  encreased 
rapidly;  so  rapidly  that  in  the  year  1789  he  will  not  consent 
to  rate  the  people  of  that  kingdom  at  a  lower  number  than 
thirty  millions.  After  abating  much  (and  much  I  think 
ought  to  be  abated)  from  the  sanguine  calculation  of  Dr. 
Price,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  population  of  France  did 
encrease  considerably  during  this  later  period :  but  sup- 
posing that  it  encreased  to  nothing  more  than  will  be 
sufficient  to  compleat  the  24,670,000  to  25  millions,  still  a 
population  of  25  millions,  and  that  in  an  encreasing  pro- 
gress, on  a  space  of  about  twenty-seven  thousand  square 
leagues,  is  immense.  It  is,  for  instance,  a  good  deal  more 
than  the  proportional  population  of  this  island,  or  even 
than  that  of  England,  the  best-peopled  part  of  the  united 
kingdom. 

It  is  not  universally  true,  that  France  is  a  fertile  country. 
Considerable  tracts  of  it  are  barren,  and  labour  under  other 
natural  disadvantages.  In  the  portions  of  that  territory, 
where  things  are  more  favourable,  as  far  as  I  am  able  to 
discover,  the  numbers  of  the  people  correspond  to  the 
indulgence  of  nature  *.  The  Generality  of  Lisle  (this  I 
admit  is  the  strongest  example)  upon  an  extent  of  404I 
leagues,  about  ten  years  ago,  contained  734,600  souls,  which 

*  De  rAdministration  des  Finances  de  la  France,  par  Mons.  Necker, 
vol.  i.  p.  2S8. 


153  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

is  1772  inhabitants  to  each  square  league.  The  middle  term 
for  the  rest  of  France  is  about  900  inhabitants  to  the  same 
admeasurement. 

I  do  not  attribute  this  population  to  the  deposed  govern- 
ment ;  because  I  do  not  like  to  compliment  the  contrivances 
of  men,  with  what  is  due  in  a  great  degree  to  the  bounty  of 
Providence.  But  that  decried  government  could  not  have 
obstructed,  most  probably  it  favoured,  the  operation  of  those 
causes  (whatever  they  were)  whether  of  nature  in  the  soil,  or 
in  habits  of  industry  among  the  people,  which  has  produced 
so  large  a  number  of  the  species  throughout  that  whole 
kingdom,  and  exhibited  in  some  particular  places  such 
prodigies  of  population.  I  never  will  suppose  that  fabrick 
of  a  state  to  be  the  worst  of  ail  political  institutions,  which, 
by  experience,  is  found  to  contain  a  principle  favourable 
(however  latent  it  may  be)  to  the  encrease  of  mankind. 

The  wealth  of  a  country  is  another,  and  no  contemptible 
standard,  by  which  we  may  judge  whether,  on  the  whole,  a 
government  be  protecting  or  destructive.  France  far  ex- 
ceeds England  in  the  multitude  of  her  people ;  but  I  appre- 
hend that  her  comparative  wealth  is  much  inferior  to  ours ; 
that  it  is  not  so  equal  in  the  distribution,  nor  so  ready  in  the 
circulation.  I  believe  the  difference  in  the  form  of  the  two 
governments  to  be  amongst  the  causes  of  this  advantage 
on  the  side  of  England.  I  speak  of  England,  not  of  the 
whole  British  dominions ;  which,  if  compared  with  those  of 
France,  will,  in  some  degree,  weaken  the  comparative  rate  of 
wealth  upon  our  side.  But  that  wealth,  which  will  not 
endure  a  comparison  with  the  riches  of  England,  may 
constitute  a  very  respectable  degree  of  opulence.  Mr. 
Necker's  book  published  in   1785  *,  contains   an   accurate 

*  De  I'Administration  des  Finances  de  la  France,  par  M.  Necker. 


WEALTH   OF  FRANCE.  I53 

and  interesting  collection  of  facts  relative  to  public  oeconomy 
and  to  political  arithmetic;  and  his  speculations  on  the 
subject  are  in  general  wise  and  liberal.  In  that  work  he 
gives  an  idea  of  the  state  of  France,  very  remote  from  the 
portrait  of  a  country  whose  government  was  a  perfect 
grievance,  an  absolute  evil,  admitting  no  cure  but  through 
the  violent  and  uncertain  remedy  of  a  total  revolution.  He 
affirms,  that  from  the  year  1726  to  the  year  1784,  there  was 
coined  at  the  mint  of  France,  in  the  species  of  gold  and 
silver,  to  the  amount  of  about  one  hundred  millions  of 
pounds  sterling  *. 

It  is  impossible  that  Mr.  Necker  should  be  mistaken  in  the 
amount  of  the  bullion  which  has  been  coined  in  the  mint.  It 
is  a  matter  of  official  record.  The  reasonings  of  this  able 
financier,  concerning  the  quantity  of  gold  and  silver  which 
remained  for  circulation,  when  he  wrote  in  1785,  that  is 
about  four  years  before  the  deposition  and  imprisonment  of 
the  French  King,  are  not  of  equal  certainty;  but  they  are 
laid  on  grounds  so  apparently  solid,  that  it  is  not  easy  to 
refuse  a  considerable  degree  of  assent  to  his  calculation. 
He  calculates  the  numeraire,  or  what  we  call  specie,  then 
actually  existing  in  France,  at  about  eighty-eight  millions  of 
the  same  English  money.  A  great  accumulation  of  wealth 
for  one  country,  large  as  that  country  is  !  Mr.  Necker  was  so 
far  from  considering  this  influx  of  wealth  as  likely  to  cease, 
when  he  wrote  in  1785,  that  he  presumes  upon  a  future 
annual  increase  of  two  per  cent,  upon  the  money  brought 
into  France  during  the  periods  from  which  he  computed. 

Some  adequate  cause  must  have  originally  introduced  all 
the  money  coined  at  its  mint  into  that  kingdom ;  and  some 
cause  as  operative  must  have  kept  at  home,  or  returned  into 
its  bosom,  such  a  vast  flood  of  treasure  as  Mr.  Necker 
calculates  to  remain  for  domestic  circulation.  Suppose  any 
*  Vol.  iii.  chap.  8.  and  chap.  9. 


154  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

reasonable  deductions  from  Mr.  Necker's  computation:  the 
remainder  must  still  amount  to  an  immense  sum.  Causes 
thus  powerful  to  acquire  and  to  retain,  cannot  be  found  in 
discouraged  industry,  insecure  property,  and  a  positively 
destructive  government.  Indeed,  when  I  consider  the  face 
of  the  kingdom  of  France;  the  multitude  and  opulence  of 
her  cities;  the  useful  magnificence  of  her  spacious  high 
roads  and  bridges ;  the  opportunity  of  her  artificial  canals 
and  navigations  opening  the  conveniences  of  maritime  com- 
munication through  a  solid  continent  of  so  immense  an 
extent ;  when  I  turn  my  eyes  to  the  stupendous  works  of  her 
ports  and  harbours,  and  to  her  whole  naval  apparatus, 
whether  for  war  or  trade ;  when  I  bring  before  my  view  the 
number  of  her  fortifications,  constructed  with  so  bold  and 
masterly  a  skill,  and  made  and  maintained  at  so  prodigious  a 
charge,  presenting  an  armed  front  and  impenetrable  barrier 
to  her  enemies  upon  every  side ;  when  I  recollect  how  very 
small  a  part  of  that  extensive  region  is  without  cultivation, 
and  to  what  complete  perfection  the  culture  of  many  of  the 
best  productions  of  the  earth  have  been  brought  in  France ; 
when  I  reflect  on  the  excellence  of  her  manufactures  and 
fabrics,  second  to  none  but  ours,  and  in  some  particulars  not 
second;  when  I  contemplate  the  grand  foundations  of 
charity,  public  and  private ;  when  I  survey  the  state  of  all  the 
arts  that  beautify  and  polish  life ;  when  I  reckon  the  men  she 
has  bred  for  extending  her  fame  in  war,  her  able  statesmen, 
the  multitude  of  her  profound  lawyers  and  theologians,  her 
philosophers,  her  critics,  her  historians  and  antiquaries,  her 
poets,  and  her  orators  sacred  and  profane,  I  behold  in  all 
this  something  which  awes  and  commands  the  imagination, 
which  checks  the  mind  on  the  brink  of  precipitate  and  indis- 
criminate censure,  and  which  demands,  that  we  should  very 
seriously  examine,  what  and  how  great  are  the  latent  vices 
that  could  authorise  us  at  once  to  level  so  spacious  a  fabric 


GOVERNMENT   OF  LOUIS  XVI.  1 55 

.with  the  ground,  I  do  not  recognize,  in  this  view  of  things, 
the  despotism  of  Turkey.  Nor  do  I  discern  the  character  of 
a  government,  that  has  been,  on  the  whole,  so  oppressive,  or 
so  corrupt,  or  so  negligent,  as  to  be  utterly  unfit  /or  all 
reformation,  I  must  think  such  a  government  well  deserved 
to  have  its  excellencies  heightened;  its  faults  corrected;  and 
its  capacities  improved  into  a  British  constitution. 

Whoever  has  examined  into  the  proceedings  of  that  de- 
posed government  for  several  years  back,  cannot  fail  to  have 
observed,  amidst  the  inconstancy  and  fluctuation  natural  to 
courts,  an  earnest  endeavour  towards  the  prosperity  and 
improvement  of  the  country ;  he  must  admit,  that  it  had  long 
been  employed,  in  some  instances,  wholly  to  remove,  in 
many  considerably  to  correct,  the  abusive  practices  and 
usages  that  had  prevailed  in  the  state;  and  that  even  the 
unlimited  power  of  the  sovereign  over  the  persons  of  his 
subjects,  inconsistent,  as  undoubtedly  it  was,  with  law  and 
liberty,  had  yet  been  every  day  growing  more  mitigated  in 
the  exercise.  So  far  from  refusing  itself  to  reformation,  that 
government  was  open,  with  a  censurable  degree  of  facility,  to 
all  sorts  of  projects  and  projectors  on  the  subject.  Rather 
too  much  countenance  was  given  to  the  spirit  of  innovation, 
which  soon  was  turned  against  those  who  fostered  it,  and 
ended  in  their  ruin.  It  is  but  cold,  and  no  very  flattering 
justice  to  that  fallen  monarchy,  to  say,  that,  for  many  years, 
it  trespassed  more  by  levity  and  want  of  judgment  in  several 
of  its  schemes,  than  from  any  defect  in  diligence  or  in  public 
spirit.  To  compare  the  government  of  France  for  the  last 
fifteen  or  sixteen  years  with  wise  and  well-constituted 
establishments,  during  that,  or  during  any  period,  is  not  to 
act  with  fairness.  But  if  in  point  of  prodigality  in  the  ex- 
penditure of  money,  or  in  point  of  rigour  in  the  exercise  of 
power,  it   be  compared  with  any  of  the  former  reigns,  I 


1^6  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

believe  candid  judges  will  give  little  credit  to  the  good 
intentions  of  those  who  dwell  perpetually  on  the  donations  to 
favourites,  or  on  the  expences  of  the  court,  or  on  the  horrors 
of  the  Bastile  in  the  reign  of  Louis  the  XVIth  *. 

Whether  the  system,  if  it  deserves  such  a  name,  now  built 
on  the  ruins  of  that  antient  monarchy,  will  be  able  to  give  a 
better  account  of  the  population  and  wealth  of  the  country, 
which  it  has  taken  under  its  care,  is  a  matter  very  doubtful. 
Instead  of  improving  by  the  change,  I  apprehend  that  a  long 
series  of  years  must  be  told  before  it  can  recover  in  any 
degree  the  effects  of  this  philosophic  revolution,  and  before 
the  nation  can  be  replaced  on  its  former  footing.  If  Dr. 
Price  should  think  fit,  a  few  years  hence,  to  favour  us  with  an 
estimate  of  the  population  of  France,  he  will  hardly  be  able  to 
make  up  his  tale  of  thirty  millions  of  souls,  as  computed  in 
1789,  or  the  assembly's  computation  of  twenty-six  millions  of 
that  year;  or  even  Mr.  Necker's  twenty-five  millions  in  1780. 
I  hear  that  there  are  considerable  emigrations  from  France ; 
and  that  many,  quitting  that  voluptuous  climate,  and  that 
seductive  Circean  liberty,  have  taken  refuge  in  the  frozen 
regions,  and  under  the  British  despotism,  of  Canada. 

In  the  present  disappearance  of  coin,  no  person  could 
think  it  the  same  country,  in  which  the  present  minister  of 
the  finances  has  been  able  to  discover  fourscore  millions 
sterling  in  specie.  From  its  general  aspect  one  would 
conclude  that  it  had  been  for  some  time  past  under  the 
special  direction  of  the  learned  academicians  of  Laputa  and 
Balnibarbi  f.  Already  the  population  of  Paris  has  so  declined, 
that  Mr.  Necker  stated  to  the  national  assembly  the  provision 

*  The  world  is  obliged  to  M.  de  Calonne  for  the  pains  he  has  taken 
to  refute  the  scandalous  exaggerations  relative  to  some  of  the  royal 
expences,  and  to  detect  the  fallacious  account  gjiven  of  pensions,  for  the 
wicked  purpose  of  provoking  the  populace  to  all  sorts  of  crimes. 

+  See  Gulliver's  Travels  for  the  idea  of  countries  governed  by 
philosophers. 


PRESENT   WEALTH. 


^57 


to  be  made  for  its  subsistence  at  a  fifth  less  than  what  had 
formerly  been  found  requisite  *.  It  is  said  (and  I  have  never 
heard  it  contradicted)  that  an  hundred  thousand  people  are 
out  of  employment  in  that  city,  though  it  is  become  the  seat 
of  the  imprisoned  court  and  national  assembly,  JSTothing,  I 
am  credibly  informed,  can  exceed  the  shocking  and  disgus- 
ting spectacle  of  mendicancy  displayed  in  that  capital. 
Indeed,  the  votes  of  the  national  assembly  leave  no  doubt  of 
the  fact.  They  have  lately  appointed  a  standing  committee 
of  mendicancy.  They  are  contriving  at  once  a  vigorous 
police  on  this  subject,  and,  for  the  first  time,  the  imposition 
of  a  tax  to  maintain  the  poor,  for  whose  present  relief  great 
sums  appear  on  the  face  of  the  public  accounts  of  the  year  f. 
In  the  mean  time,  the  leaders  of  the  legislative  clubs  and 

*  M.  de  Calonne  states  the  falling  off  of  the  population  of  Paris  as 
far  more  considerable;  and  it  may  be  so,  since   the  period   of  Mr. 
Necker's  calculation, 
"j*  Travaux  de  charite  pour  subvenir 

au  manque  de  travail  a  Paris  et  Liv.  £        s.    d. 

dans  les  provinces 3,866,920       Sts    161,121   13     4 

Destruction  de  vagabondage  et  de 

la  mendicity 1,671,417     .    .        69,642     7     6 

Primes  pour  I'importation  de  grains  6,671,907  .  .  236,329  9  2 
Depenses  relatives  aux  subsistances, 

deduction  fait  des  recouvremens 

qui  ont  eu  lieu 39,871,790    .     .1,661,324  11     8 

Total    .    •    Liv.    51,082,034    StK  2,128,418     i     8 

When  I  sent  this  book  to  the  press  I  entertained  some  doubt  con- 
cerning the  nature  and  extent  of  the  last  article  in  the  above  accounts, 
which  is  only  under  a  general  head,  without  any  detail.  Since  then 
I  have  seen  M.  de  Calonne's  work.  1  must  think  it  a  great  loss  to  me 
that  I  had  not  that  advantage  earlier.  M.  de  Calonne  thinks  this  article 
to  be  on  account  of  general  subsistence  :  but  as  he  is  not  able  to  com- 
prehend how  so  great  a  loss  as  upwards  of  yfi, 66 1,000  sterling  could  be 
sustained  on  the  difference  between  the  price  and  the  sale  of  grain,  he 
seems  to  attribute  the  enormous  head  of  charge  to  secret  expences  of  the 
revolution.  I  cannot  say  any  thing  positively  on  that  subject.  The 
reader  is  capable  of  judging,  by  the  aggregate  of  these  immense  charges, 
on  the  state  and  condition  of  France;  and  the  system  of  publick 
oeconomy  adopted  in  that  nation.  These  articles  of  account  produced 
no  enquiry  or  discussion  in  the  National  Assembly. 


158  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

coffee-houses  are  intoxicated  with  admiration  at  their  own 
wisdom  and  ability.  They  speak  with  the  most  sovereign 
contempt  of  the  rest  of  the  world.  They  tell  the  people,  to 
comfort  them  in  the  rags  with  which  they  have  cloathed 
them,  that  they  are  a  nation  of  philosophers;  and,  some- 
times, by  all  the  arts  of  quackish  parade,  by  shew,  tumult, 
and  bustle,  sometimes  by  the  alarms  of  plots  and  invasions, 
they  attempt  to  drown  the  cries  of  indigence,  and  to  divert 
the  eyes  of  the  observer  from  the  ruin  and  wretchedness  of 
the  state.  A  brave  people  will  certainly  prefer  liberty,  accom- 
panied with  a  virtuous  poverty,  to  a  depraved  and  wealthy 
servitude.  But  before  the  price  of  comfort  and  opulence  is 
paid,  one  ought  to  be  pretty  sure  it  is  real  liberty  which  is 
purchased,  and  that  she  is  to  be  purchased  at  no  other  price. 
I  shall  always,  however,  consider  that  liberty  as  very  equi- 
vocal in  her  appearance,  which  has  not  \visdom  and  justice 
for  her  companions ;  and  does  not  lead  prosperity  and  plenty 
in  her  train. 

The  advocates  for  this  revolution,  not  satisfied  with  exag- 
gerating the  vices  of  their  antient  government,  strike  at  the 
fame  of  their  country  itself,  by  painting  almost  all  that  could 
have  attracted  the  attention  of  strangers,  I  mean  their 
nobility  and  their  clergy,  as  objects  of  horror.  If  this  were 
only  a  libel,  there  had  not  been  much  in  it.  But  it  has 
practical  consequences.  Had  your  nobility  and  gentry,  who 
formed  the  great  body  of  your  landed  men,  and  the  whole  of 
your  military  officers,  resembled  those  of  Germany,  at  the  pe- 
riod when  the  Hanse-towns  were  necessitated  to  confederate 
against  the  nobles  in  defence  of  their  property — had  they 
been  like  the  Orsini  and  Viielli  in  Italy,  who  used  to  sally 
from  their  fortified  dens  to  rob  the  trader  and  traveller — had 
they  been  such  as  the  Manialukes  in  Egypt,  or  the  Nayres  on 
the  coast  of  Malabar,  I  do  admit,  that  too  critical  an  enquiry 


THE  NOBILITY.  159 

might  not  be  adviseable  into  the  means  of  freeing  the  world 
from  such  a  nuisance.  The  statues  of  Equity  and  Mercy 
might  be  veiled  for  a  moment.  The  tenderest  minds,  con- 
founded with  the  dreadful  exigence  in  which  morality  submits 
to  the  suspension  of  its  own  rules  in  favour  of  its  own 
principles,  might  turn  aside  whilst  fraud  and  violence  were 
accomplishing  the  destruction  of  a  pretended  nobility  which 
disgraced  whilst  it  persecuted  human  nature.  The  persons 
most  abhorrent  from  blood,  and  treason,  and  arbitrary  con- 
fiscation, might  remain  silent  spectators  of  this  civil  war 
between  the  vices. 

But  did  the  privileged  nobility  who  met  under  the  king's 
precept  at  Versailles,  in  1789,  or  their  constituents,  deserve  to 
be  looked  on  as  the  Nayres  or  Mamalukes  of  this  age,  or  as 
the  Orsini  and  Vitelli  of  antient  times  ?  If  I  had  then  asked 
the  question,  I  should  have  passed  for  a  madman.  What 
have  they  since  done  that  they  were  to  be  driven  into  exile, 
that  their  persons  should  be  hunted  about,  mangled,  and 
tortured,  their  families  dispersed,  their  houses  laid  in  ashes, 
that  their  order  should  be  abolished,  and  the  memory  of  it,  if 
possible,  extinguished,  by  ordaining  them  to  change  the  very 
names  by  which  they  were  usually  known?  Read  their 
instructions  to  their  representatives.  They  breathe  the  spirit 
of  liberty  as  warmly,  and  they  recommend  reformation  as 
strongly,  as  any  other  order.  Their  privileges  relative  to 
contribution  were  voluntarily  surrendered ;  as  the  king,  from 
the  beginning,  surrendered  all  pretence  to  a  right  of  taxation. 
Upon  a  free  constitution  there  was  but  one  opinion  in 
France.  The  absolute  monarchy  was  at  an  end.  It  breathed 
its  last,  without  a  groan,  without  struggle,  without  convulsion. 
All  the  struggle,  all  the  dissension  arose  afterwards  upon  the 
preference  of  a  despotic  democracy  to  a  government  of  reci- 
procal controul.  The  triumph  of  the  victorious  party  was 
over  the  principles  of  a  British  constitution. 


l6o  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE, 

I  have  observed  the  affectation,  which,  for  many  years 
past,  has  prevailed  in  Paris  even  to  a  degree  perfectly 
childish,  of  idolizing  the  memory  of  your  Henry  the  Fourth. 
If  any  thing  could  put  one  out  of  humour  with  that  orna- 
ment to  the  kingly  character,  it  would  be  this  overdone  style 
of  insidious  panegyric.  The  persons  who  have  worked  this 
engine  the  most  busily,  are  those  who  have  ended  their 
panegyrics  in  dethroning  his  successor  and  descendant;  a 
man,  as  good-natured  at  the  least,  as  Henry  the  Fourth; 
altogether  as  fond  of  his  people ;  and  who  has  done  infinitely 
more  to  correct  the  antient  vices  of  the  state  than  that  great 
monarch  did,  or  we  are  sure  he  never  meant  to  do.  Well  it 
is  for  his  panegyrists  that  they  have  not  him  to  deal  with. 
For  Henry  of  Navarre  was  a  resolute,  active,  and  politic 
prince.  He  possessed  indeed  great  humanity  and  mildness ; 
but  an  humanity  and  mildness  that  never  stood  in  the  way 
of  his  interests.  He  never  sought  to  be  loved  without 
putting  himself  first  in  a  condition  to  be  feared.  He  used 
soft  language  with  determined  conduct.  He  asserted  and 
maintained  his  authority  in  the  gross,  and  distributed  his 
acts  of  concession  only  in  the  detail.  He  spent  the  income 
of  his  prerogatives  nobly ;  but  he  took  care  not  to  break  in 
upon  the  capital;  never  abandoning  for  a  moment  any  of 
the  claims,  which  he  made  under  the  fundamental  laws,  nor 
sparing  to  shed  the  blood  of  those  who  opposed  him,  often 
in  the  field,  sometimes  upon  the  scaffold.  Because  he  knew 
how  to  make  his  virtues  respected  by  the  ungrateful,  he  has 
merited  the  praises  of  those  whom,  if  they  had  lived  in  his 
time,  he  would  have  shut  up  in  the  Bastile,  and  brought 
to  punishment  along  with  the  regicides  whom  he  hanged 
after  he  had  famished  Paris  into  a  surrender. 

If  these  panegyrists  are  in  earnest  in  their  admiration  of 
Henry  the  Fourth,  they  must  remember,  that  they  cannot 
think  more  highly  of  him,  than  he  did  of  the  noblesse  of 


NOBILITY  OF  FRANCE.  l6l 

France;    whose   virtue,   honour,   courage,   patriotism,   and 
loyalty  were  his  constant  theme. 

But  the  nobility  of  France  are  degenerated  since  the 
days  of  Henry  the  Fourth. — This  is  possible.  But  it  is 
more  than  I  can  believe  to  be  true  in  any  great  degree. 
I  do  not  pretend  to  know  France  as  correcdy  as  some 
others;  but  I  have  endeavoured  through  my  whole  life  to 
make  myself  acquainted  with  human  nature :  otherwise 
I  should  be  unfit  to  take  even  my  humble  part  in  the 
service  of  mankind.  In  that  study  I  could  not  pass  by 
a  vast  portion  of  our  nature,  as  it  appeared  modified  in 
a  country  but  twenty-four  miles  from  the  shore  of  this 
island.  On  my  best  observation,  compared  with  my  best 
enquiries,  I  found  your  nobility  for  the  greater  part  com- 
posed of  men  of  an  high  spirit,  and  of  a  delicate  sense  of 
honour,  both  with  regard  to  themselves  individually,  and 
with  regard  to  their  whole  corps,  over  whom  they  kept, 
beyond  what  is  common  in  other  countries,  a  censorial  eye. 
They  were  tolerably  well  bred ;  very  officious,  humane,  and 
hospitable ;  in  their  conversation  frank  and  open ;  with  a 
good  military  tone ;  and  reasonably  tinctured  with  literature, 
particularly  of  the  authors  in  their  own  language.  Many 
had  pretensions  far  above  this  description.  I  speak  of  those 
who  were  generally  met  with. 

As  to  their  behaviour  to  the  inferior  classes,  they  appeared 
to  me  to  comport  themselves  towards  them  with  good- 
nature, and  with  something  more  nearly  approaching  to 
familiarity,  than  is  generally  practised  with  us  in  the  inter- 
course between  the  higher  and  lower  ranks  of  life.  To 
strike  any  person,  even  in  the  most  abject  condition,  was  a 
thing  in  a  manner  unknown,  and  would  be  highly  disgraceful. 
Instances  of  other  ill-treatment  of  the  humble  part  of  the 
community  were  rare;  and  as  to  attacks  made  upon  the 
property  or  the  personal  liberty  of  the  commons,  I  never 

VOL.   11.  M 


l62  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

heard  of  any  whatsoever  from  /kern ;  nor,  whilst  the  laws 
were  in  vigour  under  the  antient  government,  would  such 
tyranny  in  subjects  have  been  permitted.  As  men  of  landed 
estates,  I  had  no  fault  to  find  with  their  conduct,  though 
much  to  reprehend,  and  much  to  wish  changed,  in  many  of 
the  old  tenures.  Where  the  letting  of  their  land  was  by  rent, 
I  could  not  discover  that  their  agreements  with  their  farmers 
were  oppressive ;  nor  when  they  were  in  partnership  with 
the  farmer,  as  often  was  the  case,  have  I  heard  that  they 
had  taken  the  lion's  share.  The  proportions  seemed  not 
inequitable.  There  might  be  exceptions;  but  certainly 
they  were  exceptions  only.  I  have  no  reason  to  believe  that 
in  these  respects  the  landed  noblesse  of  France  were  worse 
than  the  landed  gentry  of  this  country;  certainly  in  no 
respect  more  vexatious  than  the  landholders,  not  noble,  of 
their  own  nation.  In  cities  the  nobility  had  no  manner  of 
power;  in  the  country  very  little.  You  know,  Sir,  that 
much  of  the  civil  government,  and  the  police  in  the  most 
essential  parts,  was  not  in  the  hands  of  that  nobility  which 
presents  itself  first  to  our  consideration.  The  revenue,  the 
system  and  collection  of  which  were  the  most  grievous  parts 
of  the  French  Government,  was  not  administered  by  the 
men  of  the  sword ;  nor  were  they  answerable  for  the  vices  of 
its  principle,  or  the  vexations,  where  any  such  existed,  in 
its  management. 

Denying,  as  I  am  well  warranted  to  do,  that  the  nobility 
had  any  considerable  share  in  the  oppression  of  the  people, 
in  cases  in  which  real  oppression  existed,  I  am  ready  to 
admit  that  they  were  not  without  considerable  faults  and 
errors.  A  foolish  imitation  of  the  worst  part  of  the  manners 
of  England,  which  impaired  their  natural  character  without 
substituting  in  its  place  what  perhaps  they  meant  to  copy, 
has  certainly  rendered  them  worse  than  formerly  they  were. 
Habitual  dissoluteness  of  manners  continued  beyond  the 


NOBILITY  OF  FRANCE.  l6^ 

pardonable  period  of  life,  was  more  common  amongst  them 
than  it  is  with  us;  and  it  reigned  with  the  less  hope  of 
remedy,  though  possibly  with  something  of  less  mischief,  by 
being  covered  with  more  exterior  decorum.  They  counte- 
nanced too  much  that  licentious  philosophy  which  has 
helped  to  bring  on  their  ruin.  There  was  another  error 
amongst  them  more  fatal.  Those  of  the  commons,  who 
approached  to  or  exceeded  many  of  the  nobility  in  point  of 
wealth,  were  not  fully  admitted  to  the  rank  and  estimation 
which  wealth,  in  reason  and  good  policy,  ought  to  bestow  in 
every  country  ;  though  I  think  not  equally  with  that  of  other 
nobility.  The  two  kinds  of  aristocracy  were  too  punc- 
tiliously kept  asunder ;  less  so,  however,  than  in  Germany 
and  some  other  nations. 

This  separation,  as  I  have  already  taken  the  liberty  of 
suggesting  to  you,  I  conceive  to  be  one  principal  cause  of 
the  destruction  of  the  old  nobility.  The  military,  particularly, 
was  too  exclusively  reserved  for  men  of  family.  But  after 
all,  this  was  an  error  of  opinion,  which  a  conflicting  opinion 
would  have  rectified.  A  permanent  assembly,  in  which  the 
commons  had  their  share  of  power,  would  soon  abolish  what- 
ever was  too  invidious  and  insulting  in  these  distinctions; 
and  even  the  faults  in  the  morals  of  the  nobility  would  have 
been  probably  corrected  by  the  greater  varieties  of  occupa- 
tion and  pursuit  to  which  a  constitution  by  orders  would 
have  given  rise. 

All  this  violent  cry  against  the  nobility  I  take  to  be  a 
mere  work  of  art.  To  be  honoured  and  even  privileged  by 
the  laws,  opinions,  and  inveterate  usages  of  our  country, 
growing  out  of  the  prejudice  of  ages,  has  nothing  to  provoke 
horror  and  indignation  in  any  man.  Even  to  be  too 
tenacious  of  those  privileges,  is  not  absolutely  a  crime. 
The  strong  struggle  in  every  individual  to  preserve  posses- 
sion of  what  he  has  found  to  belong  to  him  and  to  distin- 

M  2 


1(54  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

guish  him,  is  one  of  the  securities  against  injustice  and 
despotism  implanted  in  our  nature.  It  operates  as  an 
instinct  to  secure  property,  and  to  preserve  communities  in  a 
settled  state.  What  is  there  to  shock  in  this  ?  Nobility  is  a 
graceful  ornament  to  the  civil  order.  It  is  the  Corinthian 
capital  of  polished  society.  Omnes  honi  nobilitati  semper 
favemus,  was  the  saying  of  a  wise  and  good  man.  It  is 
indeed  one  sign  of  a  liberal  and  benevolent  mind  to  incline 
to  it  with  some  sort  of  partial  propensity.  He  feels  no 
ennobling  principle  in  his  own  heart  who  wishes  to  level  all 
the  artificial  institutions  which  have  been  adopted  for  giving 
a  body  to  opinion,  and  permanence  to  fugitive  esteem.  It 
is  a  sour,  malignant,  envious  disposition,  without  taste  for 
the  reality,  or  for  any  image  or  representation  of  virtue,  that 
sees  with  joy  the  unmerited  fall  of  what  had  long  flourished 
in  splendour  and  in  honour.  I  do  not  like  to  see  any  thing 
destroyed ;  any  void  produced  in  society ;  any  ruin  on  the 
face  of  the  land.  It  was  therefore  with  no  disappointment 
or  dissatisfaction  that  my  enquiries  and  observation  did  not 
present  to  me  any  incorrigible  vices  in  the  noblesse  of 
France,  or  any  abuse  which  could  not  be  removed  by  a 
reform  very  short  of  abolition.  Your  noblesse  did  not 
deserve  punishment ;  but  to  degrade  is  to  punish. 

It  was  with  the  same  satisfaction  I  found  that  the  result  of 
my  enquiry  concerning  your  clergy  was  not  dissimilar.  It  is 
no  soothing  news  to  rhy  ears,  that  great  bodies  of  men  are 
incurably  corrupt.  It  is  not  with  much  credulity  I  Hsten  to 
any,  when  they  speak  evil  of  those  whom  they  are  going  to 
plunder.  I  rather  suspect  that  vices  are  feigned  or  exag- 
gerated, when  profit  is  looked  for  in  their  punishment.  An 
enemy  is  a  bad  witness :  a  robber  is  a  worse.  Vices  and 
abuses  there  were  undoubtedly  in  that  order,  and  must  be. 
It  was  an  old  establishment,  and  not  frequently  revised. 


THE  CLERGY.  l6^ 

But  I  saw  no  crimes  in  the  individuals  that  merited  confisca- 
tion of  their  substance,  nor  those  cruel  insults  and  degrada- 
tions, and  that  unnatural  persecution  which  has  been 
substituted  in  the  place  of  meliorating  regulation. 

If  there  had  been  any  just  cause  for  this  new  religious 
persecution,  the  atheistic  libellers,  who  act  as  trumpeters  to 
animate  the  populace  to  plunder,  do  not  love  any  body  so 
much  as  not  to  dwell  with  complacence  on  the  vices  of  the 
existing  clergy.  This  they  have  not  done.  They  find 
themselves  obliged  to  rake  into  the  histories  of  former  ages 
(which  they  have  ransacked  with  a  malignant  and  profli- 
gate industry)  for  every  instance  of  oppression  and  perse- 
cution which  has  been  made  by  that  body  or  in  its  favour,  in 
order  to  justify,  upon  very  iniquitous,  because  very  illogical 
principles  of  retaliation,  their  own  persecutions,  and  their 
own  cruelties.  After  destroying  all  other  genealogies  and 
family  distinctions,  they  invent  a  sort  of  pedigree  of  crimes. 
It  is  not  very  just  to  chastise  men  for  the  offences  of  their 
natural  ancestors ;  but  to  take  the  fiction  of  ancestry  in  a  cor- 
porate succession,  as  a  ground  for  punishing  men  who  have 
no  relation  to  guilty  acts,  except  in  names  and  general  descrip- 
tions, is  a  sort  of  refinement  in  injustice  belonging  to  the 
philosophy  of  this  enlightened  age.  The  assembly  punishes 
men,  many,  if  not  most,  of  whom  abhor  the  violent  conduct 
of  ecclesiastics  in  former  times  as  much  as  their  present 
persecutors  can  do,  and  who  would  be  as  loud  and  as  strong 
in  the  expression  of  that  sense,  if  they  were  not  well  aware 
of  the  purposes  for  which  all  this  declamation  is  employed. 

Corporate  bodies  are  immortal  for  the  good  of  the 
members,  but  not  for  their  punishment.  Nations  themselves 
are  such  corporations.  As  well  might  we  in  England  think 
of  waging  inexpiable  war  upon  all  Frenchmen  for  the  evils 
which  they  have  brought  upon  us  in  the  several  periods  of  our 
mutual  hostilities.    You  might,  on  your  part,  think  yourselves 


1 66  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

justified  in  falling  upon  all  Englishmen  on  account  of  the 
unparalleled  calamities  brought  upon  the  people  of  France 
by  the  unjust  invasions  of  our  Henries  and  our  Edwards. 
Indeed  we  should  be  mutually  justified  in  this  exterminatory 
war  upon  each  other,  full  as  much  as  you  are  in  the  unpro- 
voked persecution  of  your  present  countrymen,  on  account 
of  the  conduct  of  men  of  the  same  name  in  other  times. 

We  do  not  draw  the  moral  lessons  we  might  from  history. 
On  the  contrary,  without  care  it  may  be  used  to  vitiate  our 
minds  and  to  destroy  our  happiness.  In  history  a  great 
volume  is  unrolled  for  our  instruction,  drawing  the  materials 
of  future  wisdom  from  the  past  errors  and  infirmities  of  man- 
kind. It  may,  in  the  perversion,  serve  for  a  magazine, 
furnishing  offensive  and  defensive  weapons  for  parties  in 
church  and  state,  and  supply  the  means  of  keeping  alive,  or 
reviving  dissensions  and  animosities,  and  adding  fuel  to  civil 
fury.  History  consists,  for  the  greater  part,  of  the  miseries 
brought  upon  the  world  by  pride,  ambition,  avarice,  revenge, 
lust,  sedition,  hypocrisy,  ungoverned  zeal,  and  all  the  train 
of  disorderly  appetites,  which  shake  the  public  with  the 
same 

-^ —  '  troublous  storms  that  toss 
The  private  state,  and  render  life  iinsweet.' 

These  vices  are  the  causes  of  those  storms.  Religion, 
morals,  laws,  prerogatives,  privileges,  liberties,  rights  of  men, 
are  the  pretexts.  The  pretexts  are  always  found  in  some 
specious  appearance  of  a  real  good.  You  would  not  secure 
men  from  tyranny  and  sedition,  by  rooting  out  of  the  mind 
the  principles  to  which  these  fraudulent  pretexts  apply? 
If  you  did,  you  would  root  out  every  thing  that  is  valuable 
in  the  human  breast.  As  these  are  the  pretexts,  so  the 
ordinary  actors  and  instruments  in  great  public  evils  are 
kings,  priests,  magistrates,  senates,  parliaments,  national 
assemblies,  judges,  and  captains.     You  would  not  cure  the 


WICKEDNESS  ALTERS   ITS   GUISE.  16^ 

evil  by  resolving,  that  there  should  be  no  more  monarchs, 
nor  ministers  of  state,  nor  of  the  gospel ;  no  interpreters  of 
law;  no  general  officers;  no  public  councils.  You  might 
change  the  names.  The  things  in  some  shape  must  remain. 
A  certain  quantum  of  power  must  always  exist  in  the 
community,  in  some  hands,  and  under  some  appellation. 
Wise  men  will  apply  their  remedies  to  vices,  not  to  names ;  to 
the  causes  of  evil  which  are  permanent,  not  to  the  occasional 
organs  by  which  they  act,  and  the  transitory  modes  in  which 
they  appear.  Otherwise  you  will  be  wise  historically,  a  fool 
in  practice.  Seldom  have  two  ages  the  same  fashion  in 
their  pretexts  and  the  same  modes  of  mischief.  Wickedness 
is  a  little  more  inventive.  Whilst  you  are  discussing  fashion, 
the  fashion  is  gone  by.  The  very  same  vice  assumes  a  new 
body.  The  spirit  transmigrates;  and,  far  from  losing  its 
principle  of  life  by  the  change  of  its  appearance,  it  is 
renovated  in  its  new  organs  with  the  fresh  vigour  of  a 
juvenile  activity.  It  walks  abroad ;  it  continues  its  ravages, 
whilst  you  are  gibbeting  the  carcass,  or  demolishing  the 
tomb.  You  are  terrifying  yourself  with  ghosts  and  appari- 
tions, whilst  your  house  is  the  haunt  of  robbers.  It  is  thus 
with  all  those,  who,  attending  only  to  the  shell  and  husk  of 
history,  think  they  are  waging  war  with  intolerance,  pride, 
and  cruelty,  whilst,  under  colour  of  abhorring  the  ill 
principles  of  antiquated  parties,  they  are  authorizing  and 
feeding  the  same  odious  vices  in  different  factions,  and 
perhaps  in  worse.  s 

Your  citizens  of  Paris  formerly  had  lent  themselves  as  the 
ready  instruments  to  slaughter  the  followers  of  Calvin,  at  the 
infamous  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew.  What  should  we 
say  to  those  who  could  think  of  retaliating  on  the  Paijisians 
of  this  day  the  abominations  and  horrors  of  that  time?  They 
are  indeed  brought  to  abhor  thai  massacre.     Ferocious  as 


1 68  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

they  are,  it  is  not  difficult  to  make  them  dislike  it ;  because 
the  politicians  and  fashionable  teachers  have  no  interest  in 
giving  their  passions  exactly  the  same  direction.  Still  how- 
ever they  find  it  their  interest  to  keep  the  same  savage  dis- 
positions alive.  It  was  but  the  other  day  that  they  caused 
this  very  massacre  to  be  acted  on  the  stage  for  the  diversion 
of  the  descendants  of  those  who  committed  it.  In  this 
tragic  farce  they  produced  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  in  his 
robes  of  function,  ordering  general  slaughter.  Was  this 
spectacle  intended  to  make  the  Parisians  abhor  persecution, 
and  loath  the  effusion  of  blood  ? — No,  it  was  to  teach  them 
to  persecute  their  own  pastors ;  it  was  to  excite  them,  by 
raising  a  disgust  and  horror  of  their  clergy,  to  an  alacrity  in 
hunting  down  to  destruction  an  order,  which,  if  it  ought  to 
exist  at  all,  ought  to  exist  not  only  in  safety,  but  in  rever- 
ence. It  was  to  stimulate  their  cannibal  appetites  (which 
one  would  think  had  been  gorged  sufficiently)  by  variety  and 
seasoning;  and  to  quicken  them  to  an  alertness  in  new 
murders  and  massacres,  if  it  should  suit  the  purpose  of  the 
Guises  of  the  day.  An  assembly,  in  which  sat  a  multitude 
of  priests  and  prelates,  was  obliged  to  suffer  this  indignity  at 
its  door.  The  author  was  not  sent  to  the  gallies,  nor  the 
players  to  the  house  of  correction.  Not  long  after  this 
exhibition,  those  players  came  forward  to  the  assembly  to 
claim  the  rites  of  that  very  religion  which  they  had  dared  to 
expose,  and  to  shew  their  prostituted  faces  in  the  senate, 
whilst  the  archbishop  of  Paris,  whose  function  was  known  to 
his  people  only  by  his  prayers  and  benedictions,  and  his 
wealth  only  by  his  alms,  is  forced  to  abandon  his  house,  and 
to  fly  from  his  flock,  as  from  ravenous  wolves,  because, 
truly,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  was 
a  rebel  and  a  murderer,  [f] 

['  This  is  on  a  supposition  of  the  truth  of  this  story,  but  he  was  not  in 
France  at  the  time.     One  name  serves  as  viell  as  another^ 


INFIRMITIES  OF   THE  CLERGY.  1 69 

Such  is  the  efifect  of  the  perversion  of  history,  by  those, 
who,  for  the  same  nefarious  purposes,  have  perverted  every 
other  part  of  learning.  But  those  who  will  stand  upon  that 
elevation  of  reason,  which  places  centuries  under  our  eye, 
and  brings  things  to  the  true  point  of  comparison,  which 
obscures  little  names,  and  effaces  the  colours  of  little  parties, 
and  to  which  nothing  can  ascend  but  the  spirit  and  moral 
quality  of  human  actions,  will  say  to  the  teachers  of  the 
Palais  Royal,  '  The  Cardinal  of  Lorraine  was  the  mm-derer  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  you  have  the  glory  of  being  the 
murderers  in  the  eighteenth ;  and  this  is  the  only  difference 
between  you.'  But  histor}',  in  the  nineteenth  century,  better 
understood,  and  better  employed,  will,  I  trust,  teach  a 
civilized  posterity  to  abhor  the  misdeeds  of  both  these 
barbarous  ages.  It  will  teach  future  priests  and  magistrates 
not  to  retaliate  upon  the  speculative  and  inactive  atheists  of 
future  times,  the  enormities  committed  by  the  present  practi- 
cal zealots  and  furious  fanatics  of  that  wretched  error,  which, 
in  its  quiescent  state,  is  more  than  punished,  whenever  it  is 
embraced.  It  will  teach  posterity  not  to  make  war  upon 
either  religion  or  philosophy,  for  the  abuse  which  the  hypo- 
crites of  both  have  made  of  the  two  most  valuable  blessings 
conferred  upon  us  by  the  bounty  of  the  universal  Patron, 
who  in  all  things  eminently  favours  and  protects  the  race  of 
man. 

If  your  clergy,  or  any  clergy,  should  shew  themselves 
vicious  beyond  the  fair  bounds  allowed  to  human  infirmity, 
and  to  those  professional  faults  which  can  hardly  be  se- 
parated from  professional  virtues,  though  their  vices  never 
can  countenance  the  exercise  of  oppression,  I  do  admit,  that 
they  would  naturally  have  the  effect  of  abating  very  much  of 
our  indignation  against  the  tyrants  who  exceed  measure  and 
justice  in  their  punishment.  I  can  allow  in  clergymen, 
through  all  their  divisions,  some  tenaciousness  of  their  own 


170  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

opinion;  some  overflowings  of  zeal  for  its  propagation; 
some  predilection  to  their  own  state  and  office;  some 
attachment  to  the  interest  of  their  own  corps ;  some  pre- 
ference to  those  who  listen  with  docility  to  their  doctrines, 
beyond  those  who  scorn  and  deride  them.  I  allow  all  this, 
because  I  am  a  man  who  have  to  deal  with  men,  and  who 
would  not,  through  a  violence  of  toleration,  run  into  the 
greatest  of  all  intolerance.  I  must  bear  with  infirmities  until 
they  fester  into  crimes. 

Undoubtedly,  the  natural  progress  of  the  passions,  from 
frailty  to  vice,  ought  to  be  prevented  by  a  watchful  eye  and 
a  firm  hand.  But  is  it  true  that  the  body  of  your  clergy  had 
past  those  limits  of  a  just  allowance?  From  the  general 
style  of  your  late  publications  of  all  sorts,  one  would  be  led 
to  believe  that  your  clergy  in  France  were  a  sort  of  mon- 
sters; an  horrible  composition  of  superstition,  ignorance, 
sloth,  fraud,  avarice,  and  tyranny.  But  is  this  true?  Is  it 
true,  that  the  lapse  of  time,  the  cessation  of  conflicting 
interests,  the  woeful  experience  of  the  evils  resulting  from 
party  rage,  have  had  no  sort  of  influence  gradually  to 
meliorate  their  minds  ?  Is  it  true,  that  they  were  daily  re- 
newing invasions  on  the  civil  power,  troubling  the  domestic 
quiet  of  their  country,  and  rendering  the  operations  of  its 
government  feeble  and  precarious  ?  Is  it  true,  that  the  clergy 
of  our  times  have  pressed  down  the  laity  with  an  iron  hand, 
and  were  in  all  places  lighting  up  the  fires  of  a  savage  per- 
secution? Did  they  by  every  fraud  endeavour  to  encrease 
their  estates  ?  Did  they  use  to  exceed  the  due  demands  on 
estates  that  were  their  own  ?  Or,  rigidly  screwing  up  right 
into  wrong,  did  they  convert  a  legal  claim  into  a  vexatious 
extortion  ?  When  not  possessed  of  power,  were  they  filled 
with  the  vices  of  those  who  envy  it  ?  Were  they  enflamed 
with  a  violent  litigious  spirit  of  controversy  ?  Goaded  on  with 
the  ambition  of  intellectual  sovereignty,  were  they  ready  to 


PERSONAL   TESTIMONY  ON   THE   CLERGY.        Ijl 

fly  in  the  face  of  all  magistracy,  to  fire  churches,  to  massacre 
the  priests  of  other  descriptions,  to  pull  down  altars,  and  to 
make  their  way  over  the  ruins  of  subverted  governments  to 
an  empire  of  doctrine,  sometimes  flattering,  sometimes 
forcing  the  consciences  of  men  from  the  jurisdiction  of  public 
institutions  into  a  submission  to  their  personal  authority, 
beginning  with  a  claim  of  liberty  and  ending  with  an  abuse 
of  power  ? 

These,  or  some  of  these,  were  the  vices  objected,  and  not 
wholly  without  foundation,  to  several  of  the  churchmen  of 
former  times,  who  belonged  to  the  two  great  parties  which 
then  divided  and  distracted  Europe. 

If  there  was  in  France,  as  in  other  countries  there  visibly 
is,  a  great  abatement,  rather  than  any  increase  of  these  vices, 
instead  of  loading  the  present  clergy  with  the  crimes  of 
other  men,  and  the  odious  character  of  other  times,  in 
common  equity  they  ought  to  be  praised,  encouraged, 
and  supported,  in  their  departure  from  a  spirit  which 
disgraced  their  predecessors,  and  for  having  assumed  a 
temper  of  mind  and  manners  more  suitable  to  their  sacred 
function. 

When  my  occasions  took  me  into  France,  towards  the 
close  of  the  late  reign,  the  clergy,  under  all  their  forms, 
engaged  a  considerable  part  of  my  curiosity.  So  far  from 
finding  (except  from  one  set  of  men,  not  then  very  numerous, 
though  very  active)  the  complaints  and  discontents  against 
that  body,  which  some  publications  had  given  me  reason  to 
expect,  I  perceived  little  or  no  public  or  private  uneasiness 
on  their  account.  On  further  examination,  I  found  the 
clergy  in  general,  persons  of  moderate  minds  and  decorous 
manners ;  I  include  the  seculars,  and  the  regulars  of  both 
sexes.  I  had  not  the  good  fortune  to  know  a  great  many  of 
the  parochial  clergy ;  but  in  general  I  received  a  perfectly  good 


172  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

account  of  their  morals,  and  of  their  attention  to  their  duties. 
With  some  of  the  higher  clergy  I  had  a  personal  acquaintance  ; 
and  of  the  rest  in  that  class,  very  good  means  of  information. 
They  were,  almost  all  of  them,  persons  of  noble  birth.  They 
resembled  others  of  their  own  rank ;  and  where  there  was  any 
difference,  it  was  in  their  favour.  They  were  more  fully 
educated  than  the  military  noblesse ;  so  as  by  no  means  to  dis- 
grace their  profession  by  ignorance,  or  by  want  of  fitness  for 
the  exercise  of  their  authority.  They  seemed  to  me,  beyond 
the  clerical  character,  liberal  and  open ;  with  the  hearts  of 
gentlemen,  and  men  of  honour ;  neither  insolent  nor  servile 
in  their  manners  and  conduct.  They  seemed  to  me  rather 
a  superior  class ;  a  set  of  men,  amongst  whom  you  would 
not  be  surprised  to  find  a  Fenelon.  I  saw  among  the  clergy 
in  Paris  (many  of  the  description  are  not  to  be  met  with  any 
where)  men  of  great  learning  and  candour;  and  I  had 
reason  to  believe,  that  this  description  was  not  confined  to 
Paris.  What  I  found  in  other  places,  I  know  was  accidental ; 
and  therefore  to  be  presumed  a  fair  sample.  I  spent  a  few 
days  in  a  provincial  town,  where,  in  the  absence  of  the 
bishop,  I  passed  my  evenings  with  three  clergymen,  his 
vicars-general,  persons  who  would  have  done  honour  to  any 
church.  They  were  all  well  informed ;  two  of  them  of  deep, 
general,  and  extensive  erudition,  antient  and  modern,  oriental 
and  western;  particularly  in  their  own  profession.  They 
had  a  more  extensive  knowledge  of  our  English  divines  than 
I  expected ;  and  they  entered  into  the  genius  of  those  writers 
with  a  critical  accuracy.  One  of  these  gentlemen  is  since 
dead,  the  Abbd  Morangis.  I  pay  this  tribute,  without  re- 
luctance, to  the  memory  of  that  noble,  reverend,  learned,  and 
excellent  person;  and  I  should  do  the  same,  with  equal 
cheerfulness,  to  the  merits  of  the  others,  who  I  beUeve  are 
still  living,  if  I  did  not  fear  to  hurt  those  whom  I  am  imable 
to  serve. 


THE  BISHOPS.  173 

Some  of  these  ecclesiastics  of  ranl^,  are,  by  all  titles, 
persons  deserving  of  general  respect.  They  are  deserving 
of  gratitude  from  me,  and  from  many  English.  If  this  letter 
should  ever  come  into  their  hands,  I  hope  they  vs^ill  believe 
there  are  those  of  our  nation  who  feel  for  their  unmerited 
fall,  and  for  the  cruel  confiscation  of  their  fortunes,  with  no 
common  sensibility.  What  I  say  of  them  is  a  testimony,  as 
far  as  one  feeble  voice  can  go,  which  I  owe  to  truth. 
Whenever  the  question  of  this  unnatural  persecution  is  con- 
cerned, I  will  pay  it.  No  one  shall  prevent  me  from  being 
just  and  grateful.  The  time  is  fitted  for  the  duty ;  and  it  is 
particularly  becoming  to  shew  our  justice  and  gratitude, 
when  those  who  have  deserved  well  of  us  and  of  mankind 
are  labouring  under  popular  obloquy  and  the  persecutions  of 
oppressive  power. 

You  had  before  your  revolution  about  an  hundred  and 
twenty  bishops.  A  few  of  them  were  men  of  eminent 
sanctity,  and  charity  without  limit.  When  we  talk  of  the 
heroic,  of  course  we  talk  of  rare,  virtue.  I  believe  the 
instances  of  eminent  depravity  may  be  as  rare  amongst  them 
as  those  of  transcendent  goodness.  Examples  of  avarice 
and  of  licentiousness  may  be  picked  out,  I  do  not  question 
it,  by  those  who  delight  in  the  investigation  which  leads  to 
such  discoveries.  A  man,  as  old  as  I  am,  will  not  be 
astonished  that  several  in  every  description,  do  not  lead  that 
perfect  life  of  self-denial,  with  regard  to  wealth  or  to  plea- 
sure, which  is  wished  for  by  all,  by  some  expected,  but  by 
none  exacted  with  more  rigour,  than  by  those  who  are  the 
most  attentive  to  their  own  interests,  or  the  most  indulgent 
to  their  own  passions.  When  I  was  in  France,  I  am  certain 
that  the  number  of  vicious  prelates  was  not  great.  Certain 
individuals  among  them  not  distinguishable  for  the  regularity 
of  their  lives,  made  some  amends  for  their  want  of  the  severe 


174  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

virtues,  in  their  possession  of  the  liberal ;  and  were  endowed 
with  qualities  which  made  them  useful  in  the  church  and 
state.  I  am  told,  that  with  few  exceptions,  Louis  the  Six- 
teenth had  been  more  attentive  to  character,  in  his  pro- 
motions to  that  rank,  than  his  immediate  predecessor ;  and  I 
believe,  as  some  spirit  of  reform  has  prevailed  through  the 
whole  reign,  that  it  may  be  true.  But  the  present  ruling 
power  has  shewn  a  disposition  only  to  plunder  the  church. 
It  has  punished  all  prelates  ;  which  is  to  favour  the  vicious, 
at  least  in  point  of  reputation.  It  has  made  a  degrading 
pensionary  establishment,  to  which  no  man  of  liberal  ideas 
or  liberal  condition  will  destine  his  chUdren.  It  must  settle 
into  the  lowest  classes  of  the  people.  As  with  you  the 
inferior  clergy  are  not  numerous  enough  for  their  duties;  as 
these  duties  are,  beyond  measure,  minute  and  toilsome ;  as 
you  have  left  no  middle  classes  of  clergy  at  their  ease,  in 
future  nothing  of  science  or  erudition  can  exist  in  the 
Gallican  church.  To  complete  the  project,  without  the 
least  attention  to  the  rights  of  patrons,  the  assembly  has 
provided  in  future  an  elective  clergy ;  an  arrangement  which 
will  drive  out  of  the  clerical  profession  all  men  of  sobriety ; 
all  who  can  pretend  to  independence  in  their  function  or 
their  conduct ;  and  which  will  throw  the  whole  direction  of 
the  public  mind  into  the  hands  of  a  set  of  licentious,  bold, 
crafty,  factious,  flattering  wretches,  of  such  condition  and  such 
habits  of  life  as  will  make  their  contemptible  pensions,  in 
comparison  of  which  the  stipend  of  an  exciseman  is  lucrative 
and  honourable,  an  object  of  low  and  illiberal  intrigue. 
Those  officers,  whom  they  still  call  bishops,  are  to  be  elected 
to  a  provision  comparatively  mean,  through  the  same  arts, 
(that  is,  electioneering  arts)  by  men  of  all  religious  tenets 
that  are  known  or  can  be  invented.  The  new  lawgivers 
have  not  ascertained  any  thing  whatsoever  concerning  their 
qualifications,  relative  either  to  doctrine  or  to  morals;   no 


^ CIVIC  education'  175 

more  than  they  have  done  with  regard  to  the  subordinate 
clergy  3  nor  does  it  appear  but  that  both  the  higher  and  the 
lower  may,  at  their  discretion,  practice  or  preach  any  mode 
of  religion  or  irreligion  that  they  please.  I  do  not  yet  see 
what  the  jurisdiction  of  bishops  over  their  subordinates  is  to 
be ;  or  whether  they  are  to  have  any  jurisdiction  at  all. 

In  short.  Sir,  it  seems  to  me,  that  this  new  ecclesiastical 
estabUshment  is  intended  only  to  be  temporary,  and  pre- 
paratory to  the  utter  abolition,  under  any  of  its  forms,  of 
the  Christian  religion,  whenever  the  minds  of  men  are  pre- 
pared for  this  last  stroke  against  it,  by  the  accomplishment 
of  the  plan  for  bringing  its  ministers  into  universal  con- 
tempt. They  who  will  not  believe,  that  the  philosophical 
fanatics  who  guide  in  these  matters,  have  long  entertained 
such  a  design,  are  utterly  ignorant  of  their  character  and  f^ 
proceedings.  These  enthusiasts  do  not  scruple  to  avow 
their  opinion,  that  a  state  can  subsist  without  any  religion 
better  than  with  one ;  and  that  they  are  able  to  supply  the 
place  of  any  good  which  may  be  in  it,  by  a  project  of  their 
own — namely,  by  a  sort  of  education  they  have  imagined, 
founded  in  a  knowledge  of  the  physical  wants  of  men ; 
progressively  carried  to  an  enlightened  self-interest,  which, 
when  well  understood,  they  tell  us  will  identify  with  an 
interest  more  enlarged  and  public.  The  scheme  of  this 
education  has  been  long  known.  Of  late  they  distinguish  it 
(as  they  have  got  an  entire  new  nomenclature  of  technical 
terms)  by  the  name  of  a  Civic  Education. 

I  hope  their  partizans  in  England,  (to  whom  I  rather 
attribute  very  inconsiderate  conduct  than  the  ultimate 
object  in  this  detestable  design)  will  succeed  neither  in  the 
pillage  of  the  ecclesiastics,  nor  in  the  introduction  of  a 
principle  of  popular  election  to  our  bishoprics  and  parochial 
cures.  This,  in  the  present  condition  of  the  world,  would  be 
the  last  corruption  of  the   church;    the   utter  ruin  of  the 


176  REVOLUTION   IN  FRANCE. 

clerical  character ;  the  most  dangerous  shock  that  the  state 
ever  received  through  a  misunderstood  arrangement  of 
religion.  I  know  well  enough  that  the  bishoprics  and  cures, 
under  kingly  and  seignoral  patronage,  as  now  they  are  in 
England,  and  as  they  have  been  lately  in  France,  are  some- 
times acquired  by  imworthy  methods ;  but  the  other  mode 
of  ecclesiastical  canvas  subjects  them  infinitely  more  surely 
and  more  generally  to  all  the  evil  arts  of  low  ambition, 
which,  operating  on  and  through  greater  numbers,  will  pro- 
duce mischief  in  proportion. 

Those  of  you  who  have  robbed  the  clergy,  think  that  they 
shall  easily  reconcile  their  conduct  to  all  protestant  nations ; 
because  the  clergy,  whom  they  have  thus  plundered,  de- 
graded, and  given  over  to  mockery  and  scorn,  are  of  the 
Roman  Catholic,  that  is,  of  /Aei'r  own  pretended  persuasion. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  some  miserable  bigots  will  be  found 
here  as  well  as  elsewhere,  who  hate  sects  and  parties  dif- 
ferent from  their  own,  more  than  they  love  the  substance  of 
religion;  and  who  are  more  angry  with  those  who  differ 
from  them  in  their  particular  plans  and  systems,  than  dis- 
pleased with  those  who  attack  the  foundation  of  our  common 
hope.  These  men  will  write  and  speak  on  the  subject  in  the 
manner  that  is  to  be  expected  from  their  temper  and  cha- 
racter. Burnet  says,  that  when  he  was  in  France,  in  the 
year  1683,  'the  method  which  carried  over  the  men  of  the 
finest  parts  to  popery  was  this — they  brought  themselves  to 
doubt  of  the  whole  Christian  religion.  When  that  was  once 
done,  it  seemed  a  more  indifferent  thing  of  what  side  or  form 
they  continued  outwardly.'  If  this  was  then  the  ecclesiastic 
policy  of  France,  it  is  what  they  have  since  but  too  much 
reason  to  repent  of.  They  preferred  atheism  to  a  form 
of  religion  not  agreeable  to  their  ideas.  They  succeeded 
in   destroying  that  form;   and   atheism  has  succeeded    in 


TRUE  REFORMATION.  1 77 

destroying  them.  I  can  readily  give  credit  to  Burnet's  story  ; 
because  I  have  observed  too  much  of  a  similar  spirit  (for  a 
little  of  it  is  '  much  too  much ')  amongst  ourselves.  The 
humour,  however,  is  not  general. 

The  teachers  who  reformed  our  religion  in  England  bore 
no  sort  of  resemblance  to  your  present  reforming  doctors  in 
Paris.  Perhaps  they  were  (like  those  whom  they  opposed) 
rather  more  than  could  be  wished  under  the  influence  of  a 
party  spirit ;  but  they  were  most  sincere  believers ;  men  of 
the  most  fervent  and  exalted  piety ;  ready  to  die,  as  some  of 
them  did  die,  like  true  heroes  in  defence  of  their  particular 
ideas  of  Christianity ;  as  they  would  with  equal  fortitude,  and 
more  chearfully,  for  that  stock  of  general  truth,  for  the 
branches  of  which  they  contended  with  their  blood.  These 
men  would  have  disavowed  with  horror  those  wretches  who 
claimed  a  fellowship  with  them  upon  no  other  titles  than 
those  of  their  having  pillaged  the  persons  with  whom  they 
maintained  controversies,  and  their  having  despised  the  com- 
mon religion,  for  the  purity  of  which  they  exerted  themselves 
with  a  zeal,  which  unequivocally  bespoke  their  highest  reve- 
rence for  the  substance  of  that  system  which  they  wished  to 
reform.  Many  of  their  descendants  have  retained  the  same 
zeal ;  but,  (as  less  engaged  in  conflict)  with  more  modera- 
tion. They  do  not  forget  that  justice  and  mercy  are  sub- 
stantial parts  of  religion.  Impious  men  do  not  recommend 
themselves  to  their  communion  by  iniquity  and  cruelty 
towards  any  description  of  their  fellow  creatures. 

We  hear  these  new  teachers  continually  boasting  of  their 
spirit  of  toleration.  That  those  persons  should  tolerate  all 
opinions,  who  think  none  to  be  of  estimation,  is  a  matter  of 
small  merit.  Equal  neglect  is  not  impardal  kindness.  The 
species  of  benevolence,  which  arises  from  contempt,  is  no 
true  charity.  There  are  in  England  abundance  of  men  who 
tolerate  in  the  true   spirit  of  toleration.     They  think  the 

VOL.  n.  N 


178  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

dogmas  of  religion,  though  in  different  degrees,  are  all  of 
moment;  and  that  amongst  them  there  is,  as  amongst  all 
things  of  value,  a  just  ground  of  preference.  They 
favour,  therefore,  and  they  tolerate.  They  tolerate,  not 
because  they  despise  opinions,  but  because  they  re- 
spect justice.  They  would  reverently  and  affectionately 
protect  all  religions,  because  they  love  and  venerate  the 
great  principle  upon  which  all  agree,  and  the  great  ob- 
ject to  which  they  are  all  directed.  They  begin  more  and 
more  plainly  to  discern,  that  we  have  all  a  common  cause,  as 
against  a  common  enemy.  They  will  not  be  so  misled  by 
the  spirit  of  faction,  as  not  to  distinguish  what  is  done  in 
favour  of  their  subdivision,  from  those  acts  of  hostility, 
which,  through  some  particular  description,  are  aimed  at  the 
whole  corps,  in  which  they  themselves,  under  another  de- 
nomination, are  included.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  say 
what  may  be  the  character  of  every  description  of  men 
amongst  us.  But  I  speak  for  the  greater  part;  and  for 
them,  I  must  tell  you,  that  sacrilege  is  no  part  of  their  doc- 
trine of  good  works  ;  that,  so  far  from  calling  you  into  their ' 
fellowship  on  such  title,  if  your  professors  are  admitted  to 
their  communion,  they  must  carefully  conceal  their  doctrine 
of  the  lawfulness  of  the  proscription  of  innocent  men ;  and 
that  they  must  make  restitution  of  all  stolen  goods  whatso- 
ever.    Till  then  they  are  none  of  ours. 

You  may  suppose  that  we  do  not  approve  your  confisca- 
tion of  the  revenues  of  bishops,  and  deans,  and  chapters,  and 
parochial  clergy  possessing  independent  estates  arising  from 
land,  because  we  have  the  same  sort  of  establishment  in 
England.  That  objection,  you  will  say,  cannot  hold  as  to 
the  confiscation  of  the  goods  of  monks  and  nuns,  and  the 
abolition  of  their  order.  It  is  true,  that  this  particular  part 
of  your  general  confiscation  does  not  affect  England,  as  a 
precedent  in  point :  but  the  reason  applies ;  and  it  goes  a 


DOCTRINE   OF  PRESCRIPTION.  1 79 

great  way.  The  long  parliament  confiscated  the  lands  of  / 
deans  and  chapters  in  England  on  the  same  ideas  upon/ 
which  your  assembly  set  to  sale  the  lands  of  the  monastici 
orders.  But  it  is  in  the  principle  of  injustice  that  the  danger; 
lies,  and  not  in  the  description  of  persons  on  whom  it  is  firsr 
exercised.  I  see,  in  a  country  very  near  us,  a  course  of 
policy  pursued,,  which  sets  justice,  the  common  concern  of 
mankind,  at  defiance.  With  the  national  assembly  of 
France,  possession  is  nothing ;  law  and  usage  are  nothing. 
I  see  the  national  assembly  openly  reprobate  the  doctrine  of 
prescription,  which*  one  of  the  greatest  of  their  own  lawyers 
tells  us,  with  great  truth,  is  a  part  of  the  law  of  nature.  He 
tells  us,  that  the  positive  ascertainment  of  its  limits,  and  its 
security  from  invasion,  were  among  the  causes  for  which 
civil  society  itself  has  been  instituted.  If  prescription  be 
once  shaken,  no  species  of  property  is  secure,  when  it  once 
becomes  an  object  large  enough  to  tempt  the  cupidity  of 
indigent  power.  I  see  a  practice  perfectly  correspondent  to 
their  contempt  of  this  great  fundamental  part  of  natural  law.  \j 
I  see  the  confiscators  begin  with  bishops,  and  chapters,  and 
monasteries;  but  I  do  not  see  them  end  there.  I  see  the 
princes  of  the  blood,  who,  by  the  oldest  usages  of  that  king- 
dom, held  large  landed  estates,  (hardly  with  the  compliment 
of  a  debate)  deprived  of  their  possessions,  and  in  lieu  of 
their  stable  independent  property,  reduced  to  the  hope  of 
some  precarious,  charitable  pension,  at  the  pleasure  of  an 
assembly,  which  of  course  will  pay  little  regard  to  the  rights 
of  pensioners  at  pleasure,  when  it  despises  those  of  legal 
proprietors.  Flushed  with  the  insolence  of  their  first  inglo- 
rious victories,  and  pressed  by  the  distresses  caused  by  their 
lust  of  unhallowed  lucre,  disappointed  but  not  discouraged, 
they  have  at  length  ventured  completely  to  subvert  all  pro- 
perty of  all  descriptions  throughout  the  extent  of  a  great 

*  Domat. 
N    2 


l8o  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

kingdom.  They  have  compelled  all  men,  in  all  transactions 
of  commerce,  in  the  disposal  of  lands,  in  civil  dealing,  and 
through  the  whole  communion  of  life,  to  accept  as  perfect 
payment  and  good  and  lawful  tender,  the  symbols  of  their 
speculations  on  a  projected  sale  of  their  plunder.  What 
vestiges  of  liberty  or  property  have  they  left  ?  The  tenant- 
right  of  a  cabbage-garden,  a  year's  interest  in  a  hovel,  the 
good-will  of  an  ale-house,  or  a  baker's  shop,  the  very  shadow 
of  a  constructive  property,  are  more  ceremoniously  treated 
m  our  parliament  than  with  you  the  oldest  and  most 
valuable  landed  possessions,  in  the  hands  of  the  most  re- 
spectable personages,  or  than  the  whole  body  of  the  monied 
and  commercial  interest  of  your  country.  We  entertain  an 
high  opinion  of  the  legislative  authority ;  but  we  have  never 
dreamt  that  parliaments  had  any  right  whatever  to  violate 
property,  to  overrule  prescription,  or  to  force  a  currency  of 
their  own  fiction  in  the  place  of  that  which  is  real,  and 
recognized  by  the  law  of  nations.  But  you,  who  began  with 
refusing  to  submit  to  the  most  moderate  restraints,  have 
ended  by  establishing  an  unheard  of  despotism.  I  find  the 
ground  upon  which  your  confiscators  go  is  this;  that  indeed 
their  proceedings  could  not  be  supported  in  a  court  of 
justice;  but  that  the  rules  of  prescription  cannot  bind  a 
legislative  assembly  *.  So  that  this  legislative  assembly  of  a 
free  nation  sits,  not  for  the  security,  but  for  the  destruction 
of  property,  and  not  of  property  only,  but  of  every  rule  and 
maxim  which  can  give  it  stability,  and  of  those  instruments 
which  can  alone  give  it  circulation. 

When  the  Anabaptists  of  Miinster,  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, had  filled  Germany  with  confusion  by  their  system  of 
levelling  and  their  wild  opinions   concerning  property,  to 

•  Speech  of  Mr.  Camus,  published  by  order  of  the  National  As- 
sembly. 


'ATHEISTICAL  FANATICISM*  l8l 

what  country  in  Europe  did  not  the  progress  of  their  fury 
furnish  just  cause  of  alarm  ?     Of  all  things,  wisdom  is  the 
most   terrified   with    epidemical   fanaticism,  because   of  all 
enemies  it  is  that  against  which  she  is  the  least  able  to  furnish 
any  kind  of  resource.     We  cannot  be  ignorant  of  the  spirit   i 
of  atheistical  fanaticism,  that  is  inspired  by  a  multitude  of  \ 
writings,  dispersed  with  incredible  assiduity  and  expence,  and    \ 
by  sermons  delivered  in  all  the  streets  and  places  of  public     i 
resort  in  Paris.     These  writings  and  sermons  have  filled  the 
populace  with  a  black  and  savage  atrocity  of  mind,  which 
supersedes  in  them  the  common  feelings  of  nature,  as  well 
as  all  sentiments  of  morality  and  religion;  insomuch  that 
these  wretches  are  induced  to  bear  with  a  sullen  patience  the 
intolerable  distresses  brought  upon  them  by  the  violent  con- 
vulsions and  permutations   that  have   been   made  in  pro- 
perty*.    The   spirit   of  proselytisra   attends   this   spirit   of 
fanaticism.     They  have  societies  to  cabal  and  correspond  at 
home  and  abroad  for  the  propagation  of  their  tenets.     The  ^^ 

*  Whether  the  following  description  is  strictly  tnie  I  know  not;  but  it 
is  what  the  publishers  would  have  pass  for  true,  in  order  to  animate 
others.  In  a  letter  from  Toul,  given  in  one  of  their  papers,  is  the  fol- 
lowing passage  concerning  the  people  of  that  district :  '  Dans  la  Revolu- 
tion actuelle,  ils  ont  rcsisto  a  toutes  les  seductions  du  higotisme,  aux 
persecutions  et  aux  tracasseries  des  Ennemis  de  la  Revolution.  Ouhliant 
leurs  plus  grands  intercts  pour  rendre  hommage  aux  vues  d'ordre  general 
qui  ont  determine  I'Assemblce  Nationale,  ils  voient,  sans  se  plaindre, 
supprimer  cette  foule  d'etablissemens  ecclesiastiques  par  lesquels  ils  sub- 
sistoient ;  et  meme,  en  perdant  leur  siege  episcopal,  la  seule  de  toutes  ces 
ressources  qui  pouvoit,  ou  plut6t  qui  devoit,  en  toute  equite,  leur  etre  con- 
servee ;  condamnes  a  la  phis  effrayante  misere,  sans  avoir  ete  ni  pu  etre 
entendus,  ils  tie  imirmurent  poitit,  ils  restent  fideles  aux  principes  du  plus 
pur  patriotisme  ;  ils  sont  encore  prets  a  verser  leur  sang  pour  le  maintien 
de  la  Constitution,  qui  va  reduire  leur  Ville  a  la  plus  deplorable  nulliie.' 
These  people  are  not  supposed  to  have  endured  those  sufferings,  and  in- 
justices in  a  struggle  for  liberty,  for  the  same  account  states  truly  that 
they  had  been  always  free;  their  patience  in  beggary  and  ruin,  and  their 
suffering,  without  remonstrance,  the  most  flagrant  and  confessed  in- 
justice, if  strictly  true,  can  be  nothing  but  the  effect  of  this  dire  fanati- 
cism. A  great  multitude  all  over  France  is  in  the  same  condition  and 
the  same  temper. 


l82  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

republic  of  Berne,  one  of  the  happiest,  the  most  prosperous, 
and  the  best  governed  countries  upon  earth,  is  one  of  the 
great  objects,  at  the  destruction  of  which  they  aim.  I  am 
told  they  have  in  some  measure  succeeded  in  sowing  there 
the  seeds  of  discontent.  They  are  busy  throughout  Ger- 
many. Spain  and  Italy  have  not  been  untried.  England  is 
not  left  out  of  the  comprehensive  scheme  of  their  malignant 
charity ;  and  in  England  we  find  those  who  stretch  out  their 
arms  to  them,  who  recommend  their  examples  from  more 
than  one  pulpit,  and  who  choose,  in  more  than  one  periodi- 
cal meeting,  publicly  to  correspond  with  them,  to  applaud 
them,  and  to  hold  them  up  as  objects  for  imitation ;  who  re- 
ceive from  them  tokens  of  confraternity,  and  standards  con- 
secrated amidst  their  rites  and  mysteries*;  who  suggest  to 
them  leagues  of  perpetual  amity,  at  the  very  time  when  the 
power,  to  which  our  constitution  has  exclusively  delegated 
the  federative  capacity  of  this  kingdom,  may  find  it  ex- 
pedient to  make  war  upon  them. 

It  is  not  the  confiscation  of  our  church  property  from  this 
example  in  France  that  I  dread,  though  I  think  this  would 
be  no  trifling  evil.  The  great  source  of  my  solicitude  is, 
lest  it  should  ever  be  considered  in  England  as  the  policy  of 
a  state,  to  seek  a  resource  in  confiscations  of  any  kind ;  or 
that  any  one  description  of  citizens  should  be  brought  to  re- 
gard any  of  the  others  as  their  proper  preyt.     Nations  are 

*  See  the  proceedings  of  the  confederation  at  Nantz. 

"^ '  Si  plures  sunt  ii  quibus  improbe  datum  est,  quam  illi  quibus  injuste 
ademptum  est,  idcirco  plus  etiam  valent  ?  Non  enim  numero  hsec  judi- 
cantur,  sed  pondere.  Quam  autem  habet  sequitatem,  ut  agrum  multis 
annis,  aut  etiam  sseculis  ante  possessum,  qui  nullum  habuit  habeat ;  qui 
autem  habuit  amittat?  Ac,  propter  hoc  injuriae  genus,  Lacedsemonii 
LysandiTim  Ephorum  expulerunt :  Agin  regem  (quod  nunquam  antea 
apud  eos  acciderat)  necaverunt ;  exque  eo  tempore  tantse  discordiae  se- 
cutse  sunt,  ut  et  tyranni  exsisterint,  et  optimates  exterminarentur,  et  pre- 
clarissime  constituta  respublica  dilaberetur.  Nee  vero  solum  ipsa  cecidit, 
sed  etiam  reliquam  Graeciam  evertit  contagionibus  malorum,  qus  a 
Lacedcemoniis  profectee  manarunt  latius.' — After  speaking  of  the  couduct 


FOREBODINGS.  1 83 

wading  deeper  and  deeper  into  an  ocean  of  boundless  debt. 
Public  debts,  which  at  first  were  a  security  to  governments, 
by  interesting  many  in  the  public  tranquillity,  are  likely  in 
their  excess  to  become  the  means  of  their  subversion.  If 
governments  provide  for  these  debts  by  heavy  impositions, 
they  perish  by  becoming  odious  to  the  people.  If  they  do 
not  provide  for  them,  they  will  be  undone  by  the  efforts  of 
the  most  dangerous  of  all  parties ;  I  mean  an  extensive  dis- 
contented monied  interest,  injured  and  not  destroyed.  The 
men  who  compose  this  interest  look  for  their  security,  in  the 
first  instance,  to  the  fidelity  of  government ;  in  the  second, 
to  its  power.  If  they  find  the  old  goveriimerits  effete,  worn 
out,  and  with  their  springs  relaxed,  so  as  not  to  be  of  suf- 
ficient vigour  for  their  purposes,  they  may  seek  new  ones 
that  shall  be  possessed  of  more  energy;  and  this  energy 
will  be  derived,  not  from  an  acquisition  of  resources,  but 
from  a  contempt  of  justice.  Revolutions  are  favourable 
to  confiscation;  and  it  is  impossible  to  know  under  what 
obnoxious  names  the  next  confiscations  will  be  authorised. 
I  am  sure  that  the  principles  predominant  in  France  extend 
to  very  many  persons  and  descriptions  of  persons  in  all 
countries  who  think  their  innoxious  indolence  their  security. 
This  kind  of  innocence  in  proprietors  may  be  argued  into 
inutility;  and  inutility  into  an  unfitness  for  their  estates. 
Many  parts  of  Europe  are  in  open  disorder.  In  many 
others  there  is  a  hollow  murmuring  under  ground ;  a  con- 
fused movement  is  felt,  that  threatens  a  general  earthquake 
in  the  political  world.  Already  confederacies  and  corres- 
pondences of  the  most  extraordinary  nature  are  forming,  in 

of  the  model  of  true  patriots,  Aratus  of  Sicyon,  which  was  in  a  very  dif- 
ferent spirit,  he  says,  '  Sic  par  est  agere  cum  civibus ;  non  ut  bis  jam 
vidimus,  hastam  in  foro  ponere  et  bona  civium  voci  subjicere  prseconis. 
At  ille  GrKCUs  (id  quod  fuit  sapientis  et  prtestantis  viri)  omnibus  consu- 
lendum  esse  putavit :  eaque  est  summa  ratio  et  sapientia  boni  civis, 
commoda  civium  non  divellere,  sed  omnes  eadem  sequitate  continere.' 
Cic.  Off.  1.  2. 


184  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

several  countries  *.  In  such  a  state  of  things  we  ought  to 
hold  ourselves  upon  our  guard.  In  all  mutations  (if  muta- 
tions must  be)  the  circumstance  which  will  serve  most  to 
blunt  the  edge  of  their  mischief,  and  to  promote  what  good 
may  be  in  them,  is,  that  they  should  find  us  with  our  minds 
tenacious  of  justice,  and  tender  of  property. 

But  it  will  be  argued,  that  this  confiscation  in  France 
ought  not  to  alarm  other  nations.  They  say  it  is  not  made 
from  wanton  rapacity ;  that  it  is  a  great  measure  of  national 
policy,  adopted  to  remove  an  extensive,  inveterate,  super- 
stitious miscKief.  It  is  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  I  am 
able  to  separate  policy  from  justice.  Justice  is  itself  the 
great  standing  policy  of  civil  society;  and  any  eminent 
departure  from  it,  under  any  circumstances,  has  under  the 
suspicion  of  being  no  policy  at  all. 

When  men  are  encouraged  to  go  into  a  certain  mode 
of  life  by  the  existing  laws,  and  protected  in  that  mode 
as  in  a  lawful  occupation — when  they  have  accommo- 
dated all  their  ideas,  and  all  their  habits  to  it — when 
the  law  had  long  made  their  adherence  to  its  rules  a 
ground  of  reputation,  and  their  departure  from  them  a 
ground  of  disgrace  and  even  of  penalty — I  am  sure 
it  is  unjust  in  legislature,  by  an  arbitrary  act,  to  offer  a 
sudden  violence  to  their  minds  and  their  feeUngs ;  forcibly  to 
degrade  them  from  their  state  and  condition,  and  to  stigma- 
tize with  shame  and  infamy  that  character  and  those  customs 
which  before  had  been  made  the  measure  of  their  happiness 
and  honour.  If  to  this  be  added  an  expulsion  from  their 
habitations,  and  a  confiscation  of  all  their  goods,  I  am  not 
sagacious  enough  to  discover  how  this  despotic  sport,  made 
of  the  feelings,  consciences,  prejudices,  and  properties  of 
men,  can  be  discriminated  from  the  rankest  tyranny. 

*  See  two  books  intitled,  Einige  Originalschriften  des  Uluminatenor- 
dens:    System  und  Folgen  des  Illuminatenordens.    Miinchen,  1787. 


POLICY   OF   CONSERVATION,  1 85 

If  the  injustice  of  the  course  pursued  in  France  be  clear, 
the  policy  of  the  measure,  that  is,  the  public  benefit  to  be 
expected  from  it,  ought  to  be  at  least  as  evident,  and  at  least 
as  important.  To  a  man  who  acts  under  the  influence  of  no 
passion,  who  has  nothing  in  view  in  his  projects  but  the 
public  good,  a  great  difference  will  immediately  strike  him, 
between  what  policy  would  dictate  on  the  original  intro- 
duction of  such  institutions,  and  on  a  question  of  their  total 
abolition,  where  they  have  cast  their  roots  wide  and  deep, 
and  where  by  long  habit  things  more  valuable  than  them- 
selves are  so  adapted  to  them,  and  in  a  manner  interwoven 
with  them,  that  the  one  cannot  be  destroyed  without  notably 
impairing  the  other.  He  might  be  embarrassed,  if  the  case 
were  really  such  as  sophisters  represent  it  in  their  paltry  style 
of  debating.  But  in  this,  as  in  most  questions  of  state,  there 
is  a  middle.  There  is  something  else  than  the  mere  alter- 
native of  absolute  destruction,  or  unreformed  existence. 
Spar/am  nadus  es  ;  hanc  exorna.  This  is,  in  my  opinion,  a 
rule  of  profound  sense,  and  ought  never  to  depart  from  the 
mind  of  an  honest  reformer.  I  cannot  conceive  how  any 
man  can  have  brought  himself  to  that  pitch  of  presumption, 
to  consider  his  country  as  nothing  but  carle  blanche,  upon 
which  he  may  scribble  whatever  he  pleases.  A  man  full  of 
warm  speculative  benevolence  may  wish  his  society  other- 
wise constituted  than  he  finds  it ;  but  a  good  patriot,  and  a 
true  politician,  always  considers  how  he  shall  make  the  most 
of  the  existing  materials  of  his  country.  A  disposition  to 
preserve,  and  an  ability  to  improve,  taken  together,  would  be 
my  standard  of  a  statesman.  Every  thing  else  is  vulgar  in 
the  conception,  perilous  in  the  execution. 

There  are  moments  in  the  fortune  of  states  when  par- 
ticular men  are  called  to  make  improvements  by  great 
mental  exertion.  In  those  moments,  even  when  they  seem 
to  enjoy  the  confidence  of  their  prince  and  country,  and  to 


1 86  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

be  invested  with  full  authoi-ity,  they  have  not  always  apt 
instraments.  A  politician,  to  do  great  things,  looks  for  a 
power,  what  our  workmen  call  a  purchase ;  and  if  he  finds 
that  power,  in  politics  as  in  mechanics  he  cannot  be  at  a  loss 
to  apply  it.  In  the  monastic  institutions,  in  my  opinion,  was 
found  a  great  power  for  the  mechanism  of  politic  benevo- 
lence. There  were  revenues  with  a  public  direction;  there 
were  men  wholly  set  apart  and  dedicated  to  public  purposes, 
without  any  other  than  public  ties  and  public  principles; 
men  without  the  possibility  of  converting  the  estate  of  the 
community  into  a  private  fortune ;  men  denied  to  self- 
interests,  whose  avarice  is  for  some  community ;  men  to 
whom  personal  poverty  is  honour,  and  implicit  obedience 
stands  in  the  place  of  freedom.  In  vain  shall  a  man  look  to 
the  possibility  of  making  such  things  when  he  wants  them. 
The  winds  blow  as  they  list.  These  institutions  are  the 
products  of  enthusiasm ;  they  are  the  instruments  of  wisdom. 
Wisdom  cannot  create  materials ;  they  are  the  gifts  of  nature 
or  of  chance;  her  pride  is  in  the  use.  The  perennial 
existence  of  bodies  corporate  and  their  fortunes,  are  things 
particularly  suited  to  a  man  who  has  long  views ;  who  medi- 
tates designs  that  require  time  in  fashioning  ;  and  which 
propose  duration  when  they  are  accomplished.  He  is  not 
deserving  to  rank  high,  or  even  to  be  mentioned  in  the 
order  of  great  statesmen,  who,  having  obtained  the  com- 
mand and  direction  of  such  a  power  as  existed  in  the 
wealth,  the  discipline,  and  the  habits  of  such  corporations,  as 
those  which  you  have  rashly  destroyed,  cannot  find  any  way 
of  converting  it  to  the  great  and  lasting  benefit  of  his 
country.  On  the  view  of  this  subject  a  thousand  uses 
suggest  themselves  to  a  contriving  mind.  To  destroy  any 
power,  growing  wild  from  the  rank  productive  force  of  the 
human  mind,  is  almost  tantamount,  in  the  moral  world,  to 
the  destruction  of  the  apparently  active  properties  of  bodies 


USE    OF   CONSERVATION,  1 87 

in  the  material.  It  would  be  like  the  attempt  to  destroy  (if 
it  were  in  our  competence  to  destroy)  the  expansive  force  of 
fixed  air  in  nitre,  or  the  power  of  steam,  or  of  electricity,  or 
of  magnetism.  These  energies  always  existed  in  nature,  and 
they  were  always  discernible.  They  seemed,  some  of  them 
unserviceable,  some  noxious,  some  no  better  than  a  sport  to 
children;  until  contemplative  ability,  combining  with  prac- 
tic  skill,  tamed  their  wild  nature,  subdued  them  to  use,  and 
rendered  them  at  once  the  most  powerful  and  the  most 
tractable  agents,  in  subservience  to  the  great  views  and 
designs  of  men.  Did  fifty  thousand  persons,  whose  mental 
and  whose  bodily  labour  you  might  direct,  and  so  many 
hundred  thousand  a  year  of  a  revenue,  which  was  neither 
lazy  nor  superstitious,  appear  too  big  for  your  abilities  to 
wield  1  Had  you  no  way  of  using  the  men  but  by  converting 
monks  into  pensioners  ?  Had  you  no  way  of  turning  the 
revenue  to  account,  but  through  the  improvident  resource  of 
a  spendthrift  sale?  If  you  were  thus  destitute  of  mental 
funds,  the  proceeding  is  in  its  natural  course.  Your  poli- 
ticians do  not  understand  their  trade ;  and  therefore  they  sell 
their  tools. 

But  the  institutions  savour  of  superstition  in  their  very 
principle ;  and  they  nourish  it  by  a  permanent  and  standing 
influence.  This  I  do  not  mean  to  dispute;  but  this  ought 
not  to  hinder  you  from  deriving  from  superstition  itself  any 
resources  which  may  thence  be  furnished  for  the  public 
advantage.  You  derive  benefits  from  many  dispositions  and 
many  passions  of  the  human  mind,  which  are  of  as  doubtful 
a  colour  in  the  moral  eye,  as  superstition  itself.  It  was  your 
business  to  correct  and  mitigate  every  thing  which  was 
noxious  in  this  passion,  as  in  all  the  passions.  But  is  super- 
stition the  greatest  of  all  possible  vices?  In  its  possible 
excess  I  think  it  becomes  a  very  great  evil.  It  is,  however,  a 
moral  subject;  and  of  course  admits  of  all  degrees  and  all 


1 88  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

modifications.  Superstition  is  the  religion  of  feeble  minds ; 
and  they  must  be  tolerated  in  an  intermixture  of  it,  in  some 
trifling  or  some  enthusiastic  shape  or  other,  else  you  will 
deprive  weak  minds  of  a  resource  found  necessary  to  the 
strongest.  The  body  of  all  true  religion  consists,  to  be  sure, 
in  obedience  to  the  will  of  the  sovereign  of  the  world ;  in  a 
confidence  in  his  declarations;  and  an  imitation  of  his 
perfections.  The  rest  is  our  own.  It  may  be  prejudicial  to 
the  great  end ;  it  may  be  auxiliary.  Wise  men,  who  as  such 
are  not  admirer s,[no\.  admirers  at  least  of  the  Munera  TerrcE) 
are  not  violently  attached  to  these  things,  nor  do  they 
violently  hate  them.  Wisdom  is  not  the  most  severe  cor- 
rector of  folly.  They  are  the  rival  follies,  which  mutually 
wage  so  unrelenting  a  war ;  and  which  make  so  cruel  a  use 
of  their  advantages,  as  they  can  happen  to  engage  the 
immoderate  vulgar  on  the  one  side  or  the  other  in  their 
quarrels.  Prudence  would  be  neuter;  but  if,  in  the  con- 
tention between  fond  attachment  and  fierce  antipathy  con- 
cerning things  in  their  nature  not  made  to  produce  such 
heats,  a  prudent  man  were  obliged  to  make  a  choice  of  what 
errors  and  excesses  of  enthusiasm  he  would  condemn  or 
bear,  perhaps  he  would  think  the  superstition  which  builds, 
to  be  more  tolerable  than  that  which  demolishes ;  that  which 
adorns  a  country,  than  that  which  deforms  it;  that  which 
endows,  than  that  which  plunders;  that  which  disposes  to 
mistaken  beneficence,  than  that  which  stimulates  to  real 
injustice ;  that  which  leads  a  man  to  refuse  to  himself  lawful 
pleasures,  than  that  which  snatches  from  others  the  scanty 
subsistence  of  their  self-denial.  Such,  I  think,  is  very  nearly 
the  state  of  the  question  between  the  ancient  founders  of 
monkish  superstition,  and  the  superstition  of  the  pretended 
philosophers  of  the  hour. 

For  the   present   I   postpone   all   considerations   of  the 
supposed  public  profit  of  the  sale,  which  however  I  conceive 


ARGUMENT  FOR    THE   MONKS.  189 

to  be  perfectly  delusive.  I  shall  here  only  consider  it  as  a 
transfer  of  property.  On  the  policy  of  that  transfer  I  shall 
trouble  you  with  a  few  thoughts. 

In  every  prosperous  community  something  more  is  pro- 
duced than  goes  to  the  immediate  support  of  the  producer. 
This  surplus  forms  the  income  of  the  landed  capitalist.  It 
will  be  spent  by  a  proprietor  who  does  not  labour.  But 
this  idleness  is  itself  the  spring  of  labour;  this  repose  the 
spur  to  industry.  The  only  concern  of  the  state  is,  that  the 
capital  taken  in  rent  from  the  land,  should  be  returned  again 
to  the  industry  from  whence  it  came ;  and  that  its  expendi- 
ture should  be  with  the  least  possible  detriment  to  the  morals 
of  those  who  expend  it,  and  to  those  of  the  people  to  whom 
it  is  returned. 

In  all  the  views  of  receipt,  expenditure,  and  personal 
employment,  a  sober  legislator  would  carefully  compare  the 
possessor  whom  he  has  recommended  to  expel,  with  the 
stranger  who  was  proposed  to  fill  his  place.  Before  the 
inconveniences  are  incurred  which  must  attend  all  violent 
revolutions  in  property  through  extensive  confiscation,  we 
ought  to  have  some  rational  assurance  that  the  purchasers  of 
the  confiscated  property  will  be  in  a  considerable  degree 
more  laborious,  more  virtuous,  more  sober,  less  disposed  to 
extort  an  unreasonable  proportion  of  the  gains  of  the 
labourer,  or  to  consume  on  themselves  a  larger  share  than  is 
fit  for  the  measure  of  an  individual,  or  that  they  should  be 
qualified  to  dispense  the  surplus  in  a  more  steady  and  equal 
mode,  so  as  to  answer  the  purposes  of  a  politic  expenditure, 
than  the  old  possessors,  call  those  possessors,  bishops,  or 
canons,  or  commendatory  abbots,  or  monks,  or  what  you 
please.  'The  monks  are  lazy.' — Be  it  so.  Suppose  them  no 
otherwise  employed  than  by  singing  in  the  choir.  They  are 
as  usefully  employed  as  those  who  neither  sing  nor  say.  As 
usefully  even  as  those  who  sing  upon  the  stage.     They  are 


190  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

as  usefully  employed  as  if  they  worked  from  dawn  to  dark  in 
the  innumerable  servile,  degrading,  unseemly,  unmanly,  and 
often  most  unwholesome  and  pestiferous  occupations,  to 
which  by  the  social  oeconomy  so  many  wretches  are  in- 
evitably doomed.  If  it  were  not  generally  pernicious  to 
disturb  the  natural  course  of  things,  and  to  impede,  in  any 
degree,  the  great  wheel  of  circulation  which  is  turned  by  the 
strangely  directed  labour  of  these  unhappy  people,  I  should 
be  infinitely  more  inclined  forcibly  to  rescue  them  from  their 
miserable  industry,  than  violently  to  disturb  the  tranquil 
repose  of  monastic  quietude.  Humanity,  and  perhaps  policy, 
might  better  justify  me  in  the  one  than  in  the  other.  It  is  a 
subject  on  which  I  have  often  reflected,  and  never  reflected 
without  feeUng  from  it.  I  am  sure  that  no  consideration, 
except  the  necessity  of  submitting  to  the  yoke  of  luxury,  and 
the  despotism  of  fancy,  who  in  their  own  imperious  way  will 
distribute  the  surplus  product  of  the  soil,  can  justify  the 
toleration  of  such  trades  and  employments  in  a  well- 
regulated  state.  But  for  this  purpose  of  distribution,  it 
seems  to  me,  that  the  idle  expences  of  monks  are  quite 
as  well  directed  as  the  idle  expences  of  us  lay-loiterers. 

When  the  advantages  of  the  possession,  and  of  the 
project,  are  on  a  par,  there  is  no  motive  for  a  change.  But 
in  the  present  case,  perhaps  they  are  not  upon  a  par,  and  the 
diff"erence  is  in  favour  of  the  possession.  It  does  not  appear 
to  me,  that  the  expences  of  those  whom  you  are  going  to 
expel,  do,  in  fact,  take  a  course  so  directly  and  so  generally 
leading  to  vitiate  and  degrade  and  render  miserable  those 
through  whom  they  pass,  as  the  expences  of  those  favourites 
whom  you  are  intruding  into  their  houses.  Why  should  the 
expenditure  of  a  great  landed  property,  which  is  a  dispersion 
of  the  surplus  product  of  the  soil,  appear  intolerable  to  you 
or  to  me,  when  it  takes  its  course  through  the  accumulation 
of  vast  libraries,  which  are  the  history  of  the  force  and  weak- 


ARGUMENT  FOR    THE  MONKS.  I9T 

ness  of  the  human  mind;  through  great  collections  of 
antient  records,  medals,  and  coins,  which  attest  and  explain 
laws  and  customs ;  through  paintings  and  statues,  that,  by 
imitating  nature,  seem  to  extend  the  limits  of  creation ; 
through  grand  monuments  of  the  dead,  which  continue  the 
regards  and  connexions  of  life  beyond  the  grave ;  through 
collections  of  the  specimens  of  nature,  which  become  a 
representative  assembly  of  all  the  classes  and  families  of  the 
world,  that  by  disposition  facilitate,  and,  by  exciting  cu- 
riosity, open  the  avenues  to  science?  If,  by  great  per- 
manent establishments,  all  these  objects  of  expence  are 
better  secured  from  the  inconstant  sport  of  personal  caprice 
and  personal  extravagance,  are  they  worse  than  if  the  same 
tastes  prevailed  in  scattered  individuals?  Does  not  the 
sweat  of  the  mason  and  carpenter,  who  toil  in  order  to 
partake  the  sweat  of  the  peasant,  flow  as  pleasantly  and 
as  salubriously,  in  the  construction  and  repair  of  the  majestic 
edifices  of  religion,  as  in  the  painted  booths  and  sordid  sties 
of  vice  and  luxury;  as  honourably  and  as  profitably  in 
repairing  those  sacred  works,  which  grow  hoary  with  innu- 
merable years,  as  on  the  momentary  receptacles  of  transient 
voluptuousness ;  in  opera-houses,  and  brothels ;  and  gaming- 
houses, and  club-houses,  and  obelisks  in  the  Champ  de 
Mars?  Is  the  surplus  product  of  the  olive  and  the  vine 
worse  employed  in  the  frugal  sustenance  of  persons,  whom 
the  fictions  of  a  pious  imagination  raise  to  dignity  by 
construing  in  the  service  of  God,  than  in  pampering  the 
innumerable  multitude  of  those  who  are  degraded  by  being 
made  useless  domestics  subservient  to  the  pride  of  man? 
Are  the  decorations  of  temples  an  expenditure  less  worthy  a 
wise  man  than  ribbons,  and  laces,  and  national  cockades, 
and  petits  maisons,  and  petit  soupers,  and  all  the  innu- 
merable fopperies  and  follies  in  which  opulence  sports  away 
the  burthen  of  its  superfluity? 


192  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

We  tolerate  even  these ;  not  from  love  of  them,  but  for 
fear  of  worse.  We  tolerate  them,  because  property  and 
liberty,  to  a  degree,  require  that  toleration.  But  why  pro- 
scribe the  other,  and  surely,  in  every  point  of  view,  the  more 
laudable  use  of  estates  ?  Why,  through  the  violaiion  of  all 
property,  through  an  outrage  upon  every  principle  of  libert)', 
forcibly  carry  them  from  the  better  to  the  worse  ? 

This  comparison  between  the  new  individuals  and  the  old 
corps  is  made  upon  a  supposition  that  no  reform  could  be 
made  in  the  latter.  But  in  a  question  of  reformation,  I 
always  consider  corporate  bodies,  whether  sole  or  consisting 
of  many,  to  be  much  more  susceptible  of  a  public  direction 
by  the  power  of  the  state,  in  the  use  of  their  property,  and  in 
the  regulation  of  modes  and  habits  of  life  in  their  members, 
than  private  citizens  ever  can  be,  or  perhaps  ought  to  be  ; 
and  this  seems  to  me  a  very  material  consideration  for  those 
who  undertake  any  thing  which  merits  the  name  of  a  politic 
enterprize. — So  far  as  to  the  estates  of  monasteries. 

With  regard  to  the  estates  possessed  by  bishops  and 
canons,  and  commendatory  abbots,  I  caimot  find  out  for 
what  reason  some  landed  estates  may  not  be  held  otherwise 
than  by  inheritance.  Can  any  philosophic  spoiler  undertake 
to  demonstrate  the  positive  or  the  comparative  evil,  of 
having  a  certain,  and  that  too  a  large  portion  of  landed  pro- 
perty, passing  in  succession  thro'  persons  Avhose  tide  to  it  is, 
^ways  in  theory,  and  often  in  fact,  an  eminent  degree  of 
piety,  morals,  and  learning ;  a  property  which,  by  its  destin- 
ation, in  their  turn,  and  on  the  score  of  merit,  gives  to  the 
noblest  families  renovation  and  support,  to  the  lowest  the 
means  of  dignity  and  elevation;  a  property,  the  tenure  of 
which  is  the  performance  of  some  duty,  whatever  value  you 
may  choose  to  set  upon  that  duty — and  the  character  of 
whose  proprietors  demands  at  least  an  exterior  decorum  and 
gravity  of  manners;   who  are  to  exercise  a  generous  but 


THE    WORK  RESUMED.  1 93 

temperate  hospitality;  part  of  whose  income  they  are  to 
consider  as  a  trust  for  charity;  and  who,  even  when  they 
fail  in  their  trust,  when  they  slide  from  their  character,  and 
degenerate  into  a  mere  common  secular  nobleman  or  gende- 
man,  are  in  no  respect  worse  than  those  who  may  succeed 
them  in  their  forfeited  possessions  ?  Is  it  better  that  estates 
should  be  held  by  those  who  have  no  duty  than  by  those 
who  have  one  ?  By  those  whose  character  and  destination 
point  to  virtues,  than  by  those  who  have  no  rule  and  direc- 
tion in  the  expenditure  of  their  estates  but  their  own  will 
and  appetite  ?  Nor  are  these  estates  held  altogether  in  the 
character  or  with  the  evils  supposed  inherent  in  mortmain. 
They  pass  from  hand  to  hand  with  a  more  rapid  circulation 
than  any  other.  No  excess  is  good;  and  therefore  too 
great  a  proportion  of  landed  property  may  be  held  officially 
for  life ;  but  it  does  not  seem  to  me  of  material  injury  to 
any  commonwealth,  that  there  should  exist  some  estates  that 
have  a  chance  of  being  acquired  by  other  means  than  the 
previous  acquisition  of  money. 

This  letter  is  grown  to  a  great  length,  though  it  is  indeed 
short  with  regard  to  the  infinite  extent  of  the  subject. 
Various  avocations  have  froni  time  to  time  called  my 
mind  from  the  subject.  I  was  not  sorry  to  give  myself 
leisure  to  observe  whether,  in  the  proceedings  of  the  national 
assembly,  I  might  not  find  reasons  to  change  or  to  qualify 
some  of  my  first  sentiments.  Every  thing  has  confirmed  me 
more  strongly  in  my  first  opinions.  It  was  my  original  pur- 
pose to  take  a  view  of  the  principles  of  the  national  assembly 
with  regard  to  the  great  and  fundamental  establishments; 
and  to  compare  the  whole  of  what  you  have  substituted  in 
the  place  of  what  you  have  destroyed,  with  the  several  mem- 
bers of  our  British  constitution.  But  this  plan  is  of  greater 
extent  than  at  first  I  computed,  and  I  find  that  you  have 

VOL.  u.  0 


194  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

little  desire  to  take  the  advantage  of  any  examples.  At 
present  I  must  content  myself  with  some  remarks  upon 
your  establishments;  reserving  for  another  time  what 
I  proposed  to  say  concerning  the  spirit  of  our  British 
monarchy,  aristocracy,  and  democracy,  as  practically 
they  exist. 

I  have  taken  a  review  of  what  has  been  done  by  the 
governing  power  in  France.  I  have  certainly  spoke  of  it 
with  freedom.  Those  whose  principle  it  is  to  despise  the 
antient  permanent  sense  of  mankind,  and  to  set  up  a  scheme 
of  society  on  new  principles,  must  naturally  expect  that  such 
of  us  who  think  better  of  the  judgment  of  the  human  race 
than  of  theirs,  should  consider  both  them  and  their  devices, 
as  men  and  schemes  upon  their  trial.  They  must  take  it  for 
granted  that  we  attend  much  to  their  reason,  but  not  at  all 
to  their  authority.  They  have  not  one  of  the  great  influenc- 
ing prejudices  of  mankind  in  their  favour.  They  avow  their 
hostility  to  opinion.  Of  course  they  must  expect  no  support 
from  that  influence,  which,  with  every  other  authority,  they 
have  deposed  from  the  seat  of  its  jurisdiction. 
(/^l  can  never  consider  this  assembly  as  any  thing  else  than 
a  voluntary  association  of  men,  who  have  availed  themselves 
of  circunistances,  to  seize  upon  the  power  of  the  state.  They 
have  not  the  sanction  and  authority  of  the  character  under 
which  they  first  met.  They  have  assumed  another  of  a  very 
different  nature;  and  have  completely  altered  and  inverted 
all  the  relations  in  which  they  originally  stood.  They  do 
not  hold  the  authority  they  exercise  under  any  constitutional 
law  of  the  state.  They  have  departed  from  the  instructions 
of  the  people  by  whom  they  were  sent ;  which  instructions, 
as  the  assembly  did  not  act  in  virtue  of  any  antient  usage  or 
settled  law,  were  the  sole  source  of  their  authority.  .  The 
most  considerable  of  their  acts  have  not  been  done  by  great 
majorities;  and  in  this  sort  of  near  divisions,  which  carry 


SPIRIT  OF   THE  ASSEMBLY.  1 95 

only  the  constructive  authority  of  the  whole,  strangers  will 
consider  reasons  as  well  as  resolutions. 

If  they  had  set  up  this  new  experimental  government  as  a 
necessary  substitute  for  an  expelled  tyranny,  mankind  would 
anticipate  the  time  of  prescription,  which,  through  long 
usage,  mellows  into  legality  governments  that  were  violent  in 
their  commencement.  All  those  who  have  affections  which 
lead  them  to  the  conservation  of  civil  order  would  recognize, 
even  in  its  cradle,  the  child  as  legitimate,  which  has  been 
produced  from  those  principles  of  cogent  expediency  to 
which  all  just  governments  owe  their  birth,  and  on  which 
they  justify  their  continuance.  But  they  will  be  late  and  re- 
luctant in  giving  any  sort  of  countenance  to  the  operations 
of  a  power,  which  has  derived  its  birth  from  no  law  and  no 
necessity ;  but  which  on  the  contrary  has  had  its  origin  in 
those  vices  and  sinister  practices  by  which  the  social  union 
is  often  disturbed  and  sometimes  destroyed.  This  assembly 
has  hardly  a  year's  prescription.  We  have  their  own  word 
for  it  that  they  have  made  a  revolution.  To  make  a  revolu- 
tion is  a  measure  which,  prma  Jron/e,  requires  an  apology. 
To  make  a  revolution  is  to  subvert  the  antient  state  of  our 
country ;  and  no  common  reasons  are  called  for  to  justify 
so  violent  a  proceeding.  The  sense  of  mankind  authorizes 
us  to  examine  into  the  mode  of  acquiring  new  power,  and  to 
criticise  on  the  use  that  is  made  of  it,  with  less  awe  and 
reverence  than  that  which  is  usually  conceded  to  a  settled 
and  recognized  authority. 


A. 


In  obtaining  and  securing  their  power,  the  assembly  pro- 
ceeds upon  principles  the  most  opposite  from  those  which 
appear  to  direct  them  in  the  use  of  it.  An  observation  on 
this  difference  will  let  us  into  the  true  spirit  of  their  conduct. 
Every  thing  which  they  have  done,  or  continue  to  do,  in 
order  to  obtain  and  keep  their  power,  is  by  the  most  com- 

0  2 


jg6  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

mon  arts.  They  proceed  exactly  as  their  ancestors  of  ambi- 
tion have  done  before  them.  Trace  them  through  all  their 
artifices,  frauds,  and  violences,  you  can  find  nothing  at  all 
that  is  new.  They  follow  precedents  and  examples  with  the 
punctilious  exactness  of  a  pleader.  They  never  depart  an 
iota  from  the  authentic  formulas  of  tyranny  and  usurpation. 
But  in  all  the  regulations  relative  to  the  public  good,  the 
spirit  has  been  the  very  reverse  of  this.  There  they  commit 
the  whole  to  the  mercy  of  untried  speculations ;  they  aban- 
don the  dearest  interests  of  the  public  to  those  loose  theories, 
to  which  none  of  them  would  chuse  to  trust  the  slightest  of 
his  private  concerns.  They  make  this  difference,  because 
in  their  desire  of  obtaining  and  securing  power  they  are 
thoroughly  in  earnest ;  there  they  travel  in  the  beaten  road. 
The  public  interests,  because  about  them  they  have  no  real 
solicitude,  they  abandon  wholly  to  chance ;  I  say  to  chance, 
because  their  schemes  have  nothing  in  experience  to  prove 
their  tendency  beneficial. 

We  must  always  see  with  a  pity  not  unmixed  with  respect, 
the  errors  of  those  who  are  timid  and  doubtful  oi  themselves 
with  regard  to  points  wherein  the  happiness  of  mankind  is 
concerned.  But  in  these  gentlemen  there  is  nothing  of  the 
tender  parental  solicitude  which  fears  to  cut  up  the  infant 
for  the  sake  of  an  experiment.  In  the  vastness  of  their  pro- 
mises, and  the  confidence  of  their  predictions,  they  far  outdo 
all  the  boasting  of  empirics.  The  arrogance  of  their  preten- 
sions, in  a  manner  provokes,  and  challenges  us  to  an  enquiry 
into  their  foundation. 

I  am  convinced  that  there  are  men  of  considerable  parts 
among  the  popular  leaders  in  the  national  assembly.  Some 
of  them  display  eloquence  in  their  speeches  and  their  writ- 
ings. This  cannot  be  without  powerful  and  cultivated  talents. 
But  eloquence  may  exist  without  a  proportionable  degree  of 


THEIR  EVASION  OF  DIFFICULTIES.  1 97 

wisdom.  When  I  speak  of  ability,  I  am  obliged  to  distin- 
guish. What  they  have  done  towards  the  support  of  their 
system  bespeaks  no  ordinary  men.  In  the  system  itself, 
taken  as  the  scheme  of  a  republic  constructed  for  procuring 
the  prosperity  and  security  of  the  citizen,  and  for  promoting 
the  strength  and  grandeur  of  the  state,  I  confess  myself  un- 
able to  find  out  any  thing  which  displays,  in  a  single  in- 
stance, the  work  of  a  comprehensive  and  disposing  mind,  or 
even  the  provisions  of  a  vulgar  prudence./ Their  purpose 
every  where  seems  to  have  been  to  evade  and  slip  aside  from 
difficulty.  This  it  has  been  the  glory  of  the  great  masters  in 
all  the  arts  to  confront,  and  to  overcome ;  and  when  they 
had  overcome  the  first  difficulty,  to  turn  it  into  an  instrument 
for  new  conquests  over  new  difficulties ;  thus  to  enable  them 
to  extend  the  empire  of  their  science ;  and  even  to  push  for- 
ward beyond  the  reach  of  their  original  thoughts,  the  land 
marks  of  the  human  understanding  itself.  Difficulty  is  a 
severe  instructor,  set  over  us  by  the  supreme  ordinance  of  a 
parental  guardian  and  legislator,  who  knows  us  better  than 
we  know  ourselves,  as  he  loves  us  better  too.  Pater  ipse 
colendi  haud  facilem  esse  viam  voluit.  He  that  wrestles  with 
us  strengthens  our  nerves,  and  sharpens  our  skill.  Our 
antagonist  is  our  helper.  This  amicable  conflict  with  diffi- 
culty obliges  us  to  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  our  object, 
and  compels  us  to  consider  it  in  all  its  relations.  It  will  not 
suffer  us  to  be  superficial.  It  is  the  want  of  nerves  of  un- 
derstanding for  such  a  task ;  it  is  the  degenerate  fondness  for 
tricking  short-cuts,  and  little  fallacious  facilities,  that  has  in 
so  many  parts  of  the  world  created  governments  with 
arbitrary  powers.  They  have  created  the  late  arbitrary 
monarchy  of  France.  They  have  created  the  arbitrary  re- 
public of  Paris.  With  them  defects  in  wisdom  are  to  be 
supplied  by  the  plenitude  of  force.  They  get  nothing  by  it. 
Commencing  their  labours  on  a  principle  of  sloth,  they  have 


198  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

the  common  fortune  of  slothful  men.  The  difficulties  which 
they  rather  had  eluded  than  escaped,  meet  them  again  in  " 
their  course ;  they  multiply  and  thicken  on  them ;  they  are 
involved,  through  a  labyrinth  of  confused  detail,  in  an  indus- 
try without  limit,  and  without  direction ;  and,  in  conclusion, 
the  whole  of  their  work  becomes  feeble,  vitious,  and  insecure. 
It  is  this  inability  to  wrestle  with  difficulty  which  has 
obliged  the  arbitrary  assembly  of  France  to  commence  their 
schemes  of  reform  with  abolition  and  total  destruction*. 
But  is  it  in  destroying  and  pulling  down  that  skill  is  dis- 
played? Your  mob  can  do  this  as  well  at  least  as  your 
assemblies.  The  shallowest  understanding,  the  rudest 
hand,  is  more  than  equal  to  that  task.  Rage  and  phrenzy 
will  pull  down  more  in  half  an  hour,  than  prudence,  delibera- 
tion, and  foresight  can  build  up  in  an  hundred  years.  The 
errors  and  defects  of  old  establishments  are  visible  and 
palpable.  It  calls  for  Httle  ability  to  point  them  out;  and 
where  absolute  power  is  given,  it  requires  but  a  word  wholly 
to  abolish  the  vice  and  the  establishment  together.  The 
same  lazy  but  resdess  disposition,  which  loves  sloth  and  hates 
quiet,  directs  these  politicians,  when  they  come  to  work,  for 
supplying  the  place  of  what  they  have  destroyed.  To  make 
every  thing  the  reverse  of  what  they  have  seen  is  quite  as 
easy  as  to  destroy.     No  difficulties  occur  in  what  has  never 

*  A  leading  member  of  the  assembly,  M.  Rabaud  de  St.  Etienne,  has 
expressed  the  principle  of  all  their  proceedings  as  clearly  as  possible. 
Nothing  can  be  more  simple : — '  Tous  les  etablissemens  en  France  couron- 
nent  le  malheur  du  peiiple:  pour  le  rendre  heureux  il  faut  le  renouveler ; 

changer  ses  idees  ;  changer  ses  loix ;  changer  ses  mcBurs  ; changer 

les  hommes;   changer  les  chases;  changer  les  mots tout  detruire; 

out,  tout  detruire ;  puisque  tout  est  a r eerier'  This  gentleman  was  chosen 
president  in  an  assembly  not  sitting  at  the  Quitize  vingt,  or  the  Peiites 
Maisons;  and  composed  of  persons  giving  themselves  out  to  be  rational 
beings ;  but  neither  his  ideas,  language,  or  conduct,  differ  in  the  smallest 
degree  from  the  discourses,  opinions,  and  actions  of  those  within  and 
without  the  assembly,  who  direct  the  operations  of  the  machine  now  at 
work  in  France. 


CO^'SERVATIVE  REFORM.  1 99 

been  tried.  Criticism  is  almost  baffled  in  discovering  the 
defects  of  what  has  not  existed;  and  eager  enthusiasm,  and 
cheating  hope,  have  all  the  wide  field  of  imagination  in  which 
they  may  expatiate  with  little  or  no  opposition. 

At  once  to  preserve  and  to  reform  is  quite  another  thing. 
When  the  useful  parts  of  an  old  establishment  are  kept,  and 
what  is  superadded  is  to  be  fitted  to  what  is  retained,  a 
vigorous  mind,  steady  persevering  attention,  various  powers 
of  comparison  and  combination,  and  the  resources  of  an 
understanding  fruitful  in  expedients  are  to  be  exercised; 
they  are  to  be  exercised  in  a  continued  conflict  with 
the  combined  force  of  opposite  vices;  with  the  obsti- 
nacy that  rejects  all  improvement,  and  the  levity  that 
is  fatigued  and  disgusted  with  every  thing  of  which  it  is 
in  possession.  But  you  may  object — 'A  process  of  this 
kind  is  slow.  It  is  not  fit  for  an  assembly,  which  glories  in 
performing  in  a  few  months  the  work  of  ages.  Such  a  mode 
of  reforming,  possibly  might  take  up  many  years.'  Without 
question  it  might ;  and  it  ought.  It  is  one  of  the  excel- 
lencies of  a  method  in  which  time  is  amongst  the  assist- 
ants, that  its  operation  is  slow,  and  in  some  cases  almost 
imperceptible.  If  circumspection  and  caution  are  a  part  of 
wisdom,  when  we  work  only  upon  inanimate  matter,  surely 
they  become  a  part  of  duty  too,  when  the  subject  of  our 
demolition  and  construction  is  not  brick  and  timber,  but 
sentient  beings,  by  the  sudden  alteration  of  whose  state,  con- 
dition, and  habits,  multitudes  may  be  rendered  miserable. 
But  it  seems  as  if  it  were  the  prevalent  opinion  in  Paris,  that 
an  unfeeling  heart,  and  an  undoubting  confidence,  are  the 
sole  qualifications  for  a  perfect  legislator.  Far  diff'erent  are 
my  ideas  of  that  high  office.  The  true  lawgiver  ought  to 
have  an  heart  full  of  sensibility.  He  ought  to  love  and 
respect  his  kind,  and  to  fear  himself.  It  may  be  allowed  to 
his  temperament  to  catch  his  ultimate  object  with  an  intuitive 


200  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

glance;  but  his  movements  towards  it  ought  to  be  delibe- 
rate. Political  arrangement,  as  it  is  a  work  for  social  ends, 
is  to  be  only  wrought  by  social  means.  There  mind  must 
conspire  with  mind.  Time  is  required  to  produce  that  union 
of  minds  which  alone  can  produce  all  the  good  we  aim  at. 
Our  patience  will  atchieve  more  than  our  force.  If  I  might 
venture  to  appeal  to  what  is  so  much  out  of  fashion  in  Paris, 
I  mean,  to  experience,  I  should  tell  you,  that  in  my  course 
I  have  known,  and,  according  to  my  measure,  have  co- 
operated with  great  men ;  and  I  have  never  yet  seen  any 
plan  which  has  not  been  mended  by  the  observations  of 
those  who  were  much  inferior  in  understanding  to  the  person 
who  took  the  lead  in  the  business.  By  a  slow  but  well-sus- 
tained progress,  the  effect  of  each  step  is  watched ;  the  good 
or  ill  success  of  the  first,  gives  light  to  us  in  the  second  ; 
and  so,  from  light  to  light,  we  are  conducted  with  safety 
through  the  whole  series.  We  see,  that  the  parts  of  the 
system  do  not  clash.  The  evils  latent  in  the  most  promis- 
ing contrivances  are  provided  for  as  they  arise.  One  advan- 
tage is  as  little  as  possible  sacrificed  to  another.  We 
compensate,  we  reconcile,  we  balance.  We  are  enabled  to 
unite  into  a  consistent  whole  the  various  anomalies  and  con- 
tending principles  that  are  found  in  the  minds  and  affairs  of 
men.  From  hence  arises,  not  an  excellence  in  simplicity, 
but  one  far  superior,  an  excellence  in  composition.  Where 
the  great  interests  of  mankind  are  concerned  through  a  long 
succession  of  generations,  that  succession  ought  to  be  ad- 
mitted into  some  share  in  the  councils  which  are  so  deeply 
to  affect  them.  If  justice  requires  this,  the  work  itself  re- 
quires the  aid  of  more  minds  than  one  age  can  furnish.  It 
is  from  this  view  of  things  that  the  best  legislators  have  been 
often  satisfied  with  the  establishment  of  some  sure,  solid, 
and  ruling  principle  in  government ;  a  power  like  that  which 
some  of  the  philosophers  have  called  a  plastic  nature ;  and 


' QUA DRIMA NOUS  ACTIVITF.'  201 

having  fixed  the  principle,  they  have  left  it  afterwards  to  its 
own  operation. 

To  proceed  in  this  manner,  that  is,  to  proceed  with  a 
presiding  principle,  and  a  prolific  energy,  is  with  me  the 
criterion  of  profound  wisdom.  What  your  politicians  think 
the  marks  of  a  bold,  hardy  genius,  are  only  proofs  of  a 
deplorable  want  of  ability.  By  their  violent  haste,  and  their 
defiance  of  the  process  of  nature,  they  are  delivered  over 
blindly  to  every  projector  and  adventurer,  to  every  alchymist 
and  empiric.  They  despair  of  turning  to  account  any  thing 
that  is  common.  Diet  is  nothing  in  their  system  of  remedy. 
The  worst  of  it  is,  that  this  their  despair  of  curing  common 
distempers  by  regular  methods,  arises  not  only  from  defect 
of  comprehension,  but,  I  fear,  from  some  malignity  of  dispo- 
sition. Your  legislators  seem  to  have  taken  their  opinions 
of  all  professions,  ranks,  and  offices,  from  the  declamations 
and  buffooneries  of  satirists ;  who  would  themselves  be 
astonished  if  they  were  held  to  the  letter  of  their  own 
descriptions.  By  listening  only  to  these,  your  leaders 
regard  all  things  only  on  the  side  of  their  vices  and  faults, 
and  view  those  vices  and  faults  under  every  colour  of 
exaggeration.  It  is  undoubtedly  true,  though  it  may  seem 
paradoxical ;  but  in  general,  those  who  are  habitually  em- 
ployed in  finding  and  displaying  faults,  are  unqualified  for 
the  work  of  reformation :  because  their  minds  are  not  only 
unfurnished  with  patterns  of  the  fair  and  good,  but  by  habit 
they  come  to  take  no  delight  in  the  contemplation  of  those 
things.  By  hating  vices  too  much,  they  come  to  love  men 
too  little.  It  is  therefore  not  wonderful,  that  they  should  be 
indisposed  and  unable  to  serve  them.  From  hence  arises 
the  complexional  disposition  of  some  of  your  guides  to  pull 
every  thing  in  pieces.  At  this  malicious  game  they  display 
the  whole  of  their  quadrimanous  activity.  As  to  the  rest,  the 
paradoxes  of  eloquent  writers,  brought  forth  purely  as  a 


202  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

sport  of  fancy,  to  try  their  talents,  to  rouze  attention,  and 
excite  surprize,  are  taken  up  by  these  gentlemen,  not  in  the 
spirit  of  the  original  authors,  as  means  of  cultivating  their 
taste  and  improving  their  style.  These  paradoxes  become 
with  them  serious  grounds  of  action,  upon  which  they 
proceed  in  regulating  the  most  important  concerns  of  the 
state.  Cicero  ludicrously  describes  Cato  as  endeavouring  to 
act  in  the  commonwealth  upon  th§  school  paradoxes  which 
exercised  the  wits  of  the  junior  students  in  the  stoic 
philosophy.  If  this  was  true  of  Cato,  these  gentlemen  copy 
after  him  in  the  manner  of  some  persons  who  lived  about 
his  time — pede  nudo  Caionem.  Mr.  Hume  told  me,  that  he 
had  from  Rousseau  himself  the  secret  of  his  principles  of 
composition.  That  acute,  though  eccentric,  observer  had 
perceived,  that  to  strike  and  interest  the  public,  the  marvel- 
lous must  be  produced ;  that  the  marvellous  of  the  heathen 
mythology  had  long  since  lost  its  effect ;  that  giants,  magi- 
cians, fairies,  and  heroes  of  romance  which  succeeded, 
had  exhausted  the  portion  of  credulity  which  belonged  to 
their  age ;  that  now  nothing  was  left  to  a  writer  but  that 
species  of  the  marvellous,  which  might  still  be  produced,  and 
with  as  great  an  effect  as  ever,  though  in  another  way ;  that 
is,  the  marvellous  in  life,  in  manners,  in  characters,  and  in 
extraordinary  situations,  giving  rise  to  new  and  unlooked- 
for  strokes  in  politics  and  morals.  I  believe,  that  were 
Rousseau  alive,  and  in  one  of  his  lucid  intervals,  he  would 
be  shocked  at  the  practical  phrenzy  of  his  scholars,  who 
in  their  paradoxes  are  servile  imitators ;  and  even  in  their 
incredulity  discover  an  implicit  faith. 

Men  who  undertake  considerable  things,  even  in  a 
regular  way,  ought  to  give  us  ground  to  presume  ability. 
But  the  physician  of  the  state,  who,  not' satisfied  with  the 
cure  of  distempers,  undertakes  to  regenerate  constitutions, 


THE  LEGISLATURE.  203 

ought  to  shew  uncommon  powers.  Some  very  unusual  ap- 
pearances of  wisdom  ought  to  display  themselves  on  the  face 
of  the  designs  of  those  who  appeal  to  no  practice,  and  who 
copy  after  no  model.  Has  any  such  been  manifested  ?  I  shall 
take  a  view  (it  shall  for  the  subject  be  a  very  short  one)  of 
what  the  assembly  has  done,  with  regard,  first,  to  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  legislature ;  in  the  next  place,  to  that  of  the  execu- 
tive power ;  then  to  that  of  the  judicature ;  afterwards  to  the 
model  of  the  army;  and  conclude  with  the  system  of  finance, 
to  see  whether  we  can  discover  in  any  part  of  their  schemes 
the  portentous  ability,  which  may  justify  these  bold  under- 
takers in  the  superiority  which  they  assume  over  mankind. 

It  is  in  the  model  of  the  sovereign  and  presiding  part  of 
this  new  republic,  that  we  should  expect  their  grand  display. 
Here  they  were  to  prove  their  title  to  their  proud  demands. 
For  the  plan  itself  at  large,  and  for  the  reasons  on  which  it 
is  grounded,  I  refer  to  the  journals  of  the  assembly  of  the 
29th  of  September,  1789,  and  to  the  subsequent  proceedings 
which  have  made  any  alterations  in  the  plan.  So  far  as  in 
a  matter  somewhat  confused  I  can  see  light,  the  system 
remains  substantially  as  it  has  been  originally  framed.  My 
few  remarks  will  be  such  as  regard  its  spirit,  its  tendency, 
and  its  fitness  for  framing  a  popular  commonwealth,  which 
they  profess  theirs  to  be,  suited  to  the  ends  for  which  any 
commonwealth,  and  particularly  such  a  commonwealth,  is 
made.  At  the  same  time,  I  mean  to  consider  its  consistency 
with  itself,  and  its  own  principles. 

Old  establishments  are  tried  by  their  effects.  If  the  people 
are  happy,  united,  wealthy,  and  powerful,  we  presume  the 
rest.  We  conclude  that  to  be  good  from  whence  good  is 
derived.  In  old  establishments  various  correctives  have 
been  found  for  their  aberrations  from  theory.  Indeed  they 
are  the  results  of  various  necessities  and  expediences.    They 


204  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

are  not  often  constructed  after  any  theory;  theories  are 
rather  drawn  from  them.  In  them  we  often  see  the  end 
best  obtained,  where  the  means  seem  not  perfectly  recon- 
cileable  to  what  we  may  fancy  was  the  original  scheme. 
The  means  taught  by  experience  may  be  better  suited  to 
political  ends  than  those  contrived  in  the  original  project. 
They  again  re-act  upon  the  primitive  constitution,  and  some- 
times improve  the  design  itself  from  which  they  seem  to 
have  departed.  I  think  all  this  might  be  curiously  exem- 
plified in  the  British  constitution.  At  worst,  the  errors  and 
deviations  of  every  kind  in  reckoning  are  found  and  com- 
puted, and  the  ship  proceeds  in  her  course.  This  is  the 
case  of  old  establishments;  but  in  a  new  and  merely 
theoretic  system,  it  is  expected  that  every  contrivance  shall 
appear,  on  the  face  of  it,  to  answer  its  end ;  especially 
where  the  projectors  are  no  way  embarrassed  with  an 
endeavour  to  accommodate  the  new  building  to  an  old  one, 
either  in  the  walls  or  on  the  foundations. 

The  French  builders,  clearing  away  as  mere  rubbish 
whatever  they  found,  and,  like  their  ornamental  gardeners, 
forming  every  thing  into  an  exact  level,  propose  to  rest  the 
whole  local  and  general  legislature  on  three  bases  of  three 
different  kinds ;  one  geometrical,  one  arithmetical,  and  the 
third  financial ;  the  first  of  which  they  call  the  basis  of 
territory;  i\iQ  second,  iht  basis  of  population  ;  and  the  third, 
the  basis  of  contribution.  For  the  accomplishment  of  the 
first  of  these  purposes  they  divide  the  area  of  their  country 
into  eighty -three  pieces,  regularly  square,  of  eighteen 
leagues  by  eighteen.  These  large  divisions  are  called 
Departments.  These  they  portion,  proceeding  by  square 
measurement,  into  seventeen  hundred  and  twenty  districts 
called  Communes.  These  again  they  subdivide,  still  pro- 
ceeding by  square  measurement,  into  smaller  districts  called 
Cantons,  making  in  all  6,400. 


THE   BASES   OF  REPRESENTATION.  205 

At  first  view  this  geometrical  basis  of  theirs  presents  not 
much  to  admire  or  to  blame.  It  calls  for  no  great  legisla- 
tive talents.  Nothing  more  than  an  accurate  land  surveyor, 
with  his  chain,  sight,  and  theodolite,  is  requisite  for  such 
a  plan  as  this.  In  the  old  divisions  of  the  country  various 
accidents  at  various  times,  and  the  ebb  and  flow  of  various 
properties  and  jurisdictions,  settled  their  bounds.  These 
bounds  were  not  made  upon  any  fixed  system  undoubtedly. 
They  were  subject  to  some  inconveniencies ;  but  they  were 
inconveniencies  for  which  use  had  found  remedies,  and 
habit  had  supplied  accommodation  and  patience.  In  this 
new  pavement  of  square  within  square,  and  this  organisation 
and  semiorganisation  made  on  the  system  of  Empedocles 
and  Buff'on,  and  not  upon  any  politic  principle,  it  is  im- 
possible that  innumerable  local  inconveniencies,  to  which 
men  are  not  habituated,  must  not  arise.  But  these  I  pass 
over,  because  it  requires  an  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
country,  which  I  do  not  possess,  to  specify  them. 

When  these  state  surveyors  came  to  take  a  view  of  their 
work  of  measurement,  they  soon  found,  that  in  politics,  the 
most  fallacious  of  all  things  was  geometrical  demonstration. 
They  had  then  recourse  to  another  basis  (or  rather  buttress) 
to  support  the  building  which  tottered  on  that  false  founda- 
tion. It  was  evident,  that  the  goodness  of  the  soil,  the 
number  of  the  people,  their  wealth,  and  the  largeness  of 
their  contribution,  made  such  infinite  variations  between 
square  and  square  as  to  render  mensuration  a  ridiculous 
standard  of  power  in  the  commonwealth,  and  equality  in 
geometry  the  most  unequal  of  all  measures  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  men.  However,  they  could  not  give  it  up.  But 
dividing  their  poHtical  and  civil  representation  into  three 
parts,  they  allotted  one  of  those  parts  to  the  square  measure- 
ment, without  a  single  fact  or  calculation  to  ascertain 
whether   this   territorial   proportion   of  representation  was 


205  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

fairly  assigned,  and  ought  upon  any  principle  really  to  be 
a  third.  Having  however  given  to  geometry  this  portion 
(of  a  third  for  her  dower)  out  of  complinient  I  suppose  to 
that  sublime  science,  they  left  the  other  two  to  be  scuffled 
for  between  the  other  parts,  population  and  contribution. 

When  they  came  to  provide  for  population,  they  were  not 
able  to  proceed  quite  so  smoothly  as  they  had  done  in  the 
field  of  their  geometry.  Here  their  arithmetic  came  to  bear 
upon  their  juridical  metaphysics.  Had  they  stuck  to  their 
metaphysic  principles,  the  arithmetical  process  would  be 
simple  indeed.  Men,  with  them,  are  strictly  equal,  and  are 
entitled  to  equal  rights  in  their  own  gpvernment.  Each 
head,  on  this  system,  would  have  its  vote,  and  every  man 
would  vote  directly  for  the  person  who  was  to  represent  him 
in  the  legislature.  '  But  soft — by  regular  degrees,  not  yet.' 
This  metaphysic  principle,  to  which  law,  custom,  usage, 
policy,  reason,  were  to  yield,  is  to  yield  itself  to  their 
pleasure.  There  must  be  many  degrees,  and  some  stages, 
before  the  representative  can  come  in  contact  with  his  con- 
stituent. Indeed,  as  we  shall  soon  see,  these  two  persons 
are  to  have  no  sort  of  communion  with  each  other.  First, 
the  voters  in  the  Cafiton,  who  compose  what  they  call 
primary  assemblies,  are  to  have  a  qualification.  What !  a 
qualification  on  the  indefeasible  rights  of  men?  Yes;  but 
it  shall  be  a  very  small  qualification.  Our  injustice  shall  be 
very  little  oppressive ;  only  the  local  valuation  of  three  days 
labour  paid  to  the  public.  Why,  this  is  not  much,  I  readily 
admit,  for  any  thing  but  the  utter  subversion  of  your 
equalising  principle.  As  a  qualification  it  might  as  well  be 
let  alone ;  for  it  answers  no  one  purpose  for  which  qualifica- 
tions are  established :  and,  on  your  ideas,  it  excludes  from  a 
vote,  the  man  of  all  others  whose  natural  equality  stands  the 
most  in  need  of  protection  and  defence ;  I  mean  the  man 
who  has  nothing  else  but  his  natural  equality  to  guard  him. 


THE  BASIS   OF  POPULATION.  207 

You  order  him  to  buy  the  right,  which  you  before  told  him 
nature  had  given  to  him  gratuitously  at  his  birth,  and  of 
which  no  authority  on  earth  could  lawfully  deprive  him. 
With  regard  to  the  person  who  cannot  come  up  to  your  mar- 
ket, a  tyrannous  aristocracy,  as  against  him,  is  established  at 
the  very  outset,  by  you  who  pretend  to  be  its  sworn  foe. 

The  gradation  proceeds.  These  primary  assemblies  of 
the  Canton  elect  deputies  to  the  Commune;  one  .for  every  two 
hundred  qualified  inhabitants.  Here  is  the  first  medium  put 
between  the  primary  elector  and  the  representative  legislator ; 
and  here  a  new  turnpike  is  fixed  for  taxing  the  rights  of  men 
with  a  second  qualification :  for  none  can  be  elected  into  the 
Commune  who  does  not  pay  the  amount  of  ten  days  labour. 
Nor  have  we  yet  done.  There  is  still  to  be  another  grada- 
tion*. These  Communes,  chosen  by  the  Canton,  choose  to 
the  Department;  and  the  deputies  of  the  Department  choo'&Q. 
their  deputies  to  the  National  Assembly.  Here  is  a  third 
barrier  of  a  senseless  quahfication.  Every  deputy  to  the 
national  assembly  must  pay,  in  direct  contribution,  to  the 
value  of  a  mark  of  silver.  Of  all  these  qualifying  barriers  we 
must  think  alike ;  that  they  are  impotent  to  secure  indepen- 
dence ;  strong  only  to  destroy  the  rights  of  men. 

In  all  this  process,  which  in  its  fundamental  elements 
affects  to  consider  only  population  upon  a  principle  of  natural 
right,  there  is  a  manifest  attention  to  property ;  which,  how- 
ever just  and  reasonable  on  other  schemes,  is  on  theirs 
perfectly  unsupportable. 

When  they  come  to  their  third  basis,  that  of  Contribution, 

*  The  assembly,  in  executing  the  plan  of  their  committee,  made  some 
alterations.  They  have  struck  out  one  stage  in  these  gradations ;  this 
removes  a  part  of  the  objection :  but  the  main  objection,  namely,  that  in 
their  scheme  the  first  constituent  voter  has  no  connection  with  the  repre- 
sentative legislator,  remains  in  all  its  force.  There  are  other  alterations, 
some  possibly  for  the  better,  some  certainly  for  the  worse ;  but  to  the 
author  the  merit  or  demerit  of  these  smaller  alterations  appear  to  be  of 
no  moment,  where  the  scheme  itself  is  fundamentally  vitious  and  absurd. 


208  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

we  find  that  they  have  more  completely  lost  sight  of  their 
rights  of  men.  The  last  basis  rests  entirely  on  property. 
A  principle  totally  different  from  the  equality  of  men,  and 
utterly  irreconcileable  to  it,  is  thereby  admitted ;  but  no 
sooner  is  this  principle  admitted,  than  (as  usual)  it  is  sub- 
verted ;  and  it  is  not  subverted,  (as  we  shall  presently  see,) 
to  approximate  the  inequality  of  riches  to  the  level  of  nature. 
The  additional  share  in  the  third  portion  of  representation, 
(a  portion  reserved  exclusively  for  the  higher  contribution,)  is 
made  to  regard  the  district  only,  and  not  the  individuals  in 
it  who  pay.  It  is  easy  to  perceive,  by  the  course  of  their 
reasonings,  how  much  they  were  embarrassed  by  their 
contradictory  ideas  of  the  rights  of  men  and  the  privileges 
of  riches.  The  committee  of  constitution  do  as  good  as 
admiit  that  they  are  wholly  irreconcileable.  '  The  relation, 
with  regard  to  the  contributions,  is  without  doubt  null  (say 
they)  when  the  question  is  on  the  balance  of  the  political 
rights  as  between  individual  and  individual ;  without  which 
personal  equality  would  be  destroyed,  and  an  aristocracy  of  the 
rich  would  be  established.  But  this  inconvenience  entirely 
disappears  when  the  proportional  relation  of  the  contribution 
is  only  considered  in  the  great  masses,  and  is  solely  between 
province  and  province ;  it  serves  in  that  case  only  to  form 
a  just  reciprocal  proportion  between  the  cities,  without 
affecting  the  personal  rights  of  the  citizens.' 

Here  the  principle  of  contribution,  as  taken  between  man 
and  man,  is  reprobated  as  null,  and  destructive  to  equality ; 
and  as  pernicious  too ;  because  it  leads  to  the  establishment 
of  an  aristocracy  of  the  rich.  However,  it  must  not  be 
abandoned.  And  the  way  of  getting  rid  of  the  difficulty 
is  to  establish  the  inequality  as  between  department  and 
department,  leaving  all  the  individuals  in  each  department 
upon  an  exact  par.  Observe,  that  this  parity  between 
individuals  had  been  before  destroyed  when  the  qualifications 


THE   BASIS   OF   CONTRIBUTION.  209 

within  the  departments  were  settled ;  nor  does  it  seem  a 
matter  of  great  importance  whether  the  equality  of  men  be 
injured  by  masses  or  individually.  An  individual  is  not  of 
the  same  importance  in  a  mass  represented  by  a  few,  as  in  a 
mass  represented  by  many.  It  would  be  too  much  to  tell  a 
man  jealous  of  his  equality,  that  the  elector  has  the  same 
franchise  who  votes  for  three  members  as  he  who  votes  for 
ten. 

Now  take  it  in  the  other  point  of  view,  and  let  us  suppose 
their  principle  of  representation  according  to  contribution, 
that  is  according  to  riches,  to  be  well  imagined,  and  to  be  a 
necessary  basis  for  their  republic.  In  this  their  third  basis 
they  assume,  that  riches  ought  to  be  respected,  and  that 
justice  and  policy  require  that  they  should  entitle  men,  in 
some  mode  or  other,  to  a  larger  share  in  the  administration 
of  public  affairs;  it  is  now  to  be  seen,  how  the  assembly 
provides  for  the  pre-eminence,  or  even  for  the  security  of 
the  rich,  by  conferring,  in  virtue  of  their  opulence,  that 
larger  measure  of  power  to  their  district  which  is  denied  to 
them  personally.  I  readily  admit  (indeed  I  should  lay  it 
down  as  a  fundamental  principle)  that  in  a  republican 
government,  which  has  a  democratic  basis,  the  rich  do 
require  an  additional  security  above  what  is  necessary  to 
them  in  monarchies.  They  are  subject  to  envy,  and  through 
envy  to  oppression.  On  the  present  scheme,  it  is  impossible 
to  divine  what  advantage  they  derive  from  the  aristocratic 
preference  upon  which  the  unequal  representation  of  the 
masses  is  founded.  The  rich  cannot  feel  it,  either  as  a 
support  to  dignity,  or  as  security  to  fortune :  for  the  aris- 
tocratic mass  is  generated  from  purely  democratic  principles; 
and  the  prevalence  given  to  it  in  the  general  representation 
has  no  sort  of  reference  to  or  connexion  with  the  persons, 
upon  account  of  whose  property  this  superiority  of  the  mass 
is  established.     If  the  contrivers  of  this  scheme  meant  any 

VOL.  II.  p 


2IO  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

sort  of  favour  to  the  rich  in  consequence  of  their  contribu- 
tion, they  ought  to  have  conferred  the  privilege  either  on 
the  individual  rich,  or  on  some  class  formed  of  rich  persons 
(as  historians  represent  Servius  TuUius  to  have  done  in  the 
early  constitution  of  Rome) ;  because  the  contest  between 
the  rich  and  the  poor  is  not  a  struggle  between  corporation 
and  corporation,  but  a  contest  between  men  and  men;  a 
competition  not  between  districts  but  between  descriptions. 
It  would  answer  its  purpose  better  if  the  scheme  were 
inverted ;  that  the  votes  of  the  masses  were  rendered  equal ; 
and  that  the  votes  within  each  mass  were  proportioned  to 
property. 

Let  us  suppose  one  man  in  a  district  (it  is  an  easy  sup- 
position) to  contribute  as  much  as  an  hundred  of  his  neigh- 
bours. Against  these  he  has  but  one  vote.  If  there  were 
but  one  representative  for  the  mass,  his  poor  neighbours 
would  outvote  him  by  an  hundred  to  one  for  that  single 
representative.  Bad  enough.  But  amends  are  to  be  made 
him.  How  ?  The  district,  in  virtue  of  his  wealth,  is  to 
choose,  say,  ten  members  instead  of  one :  that  is  to  say,  by 
paying  a  very  large  contribution  he  has  the  happiness  of 
being  outvoted,  an  hundred  to  one,  by  the  poor  for  ten 
representatives,  instead  of  being  outvoted  exactly  in  the 
same  proportion  for  a  single  member.  In  truth,  instead  of 
benefitting  by  this  superior  quantity  of  representation,  the  rich 
man  is  subjected  to  an  additional  hardship.  The  encrease 
of  representation  within  his  province  sets  up  nine  persons 
more,  and  as  many  more  than  nine  as  there  may  be 
democratic  candidates,  to  cabal  and  intrigue,  and  to  flatter 
the  people  at  his  expence  and  to  his  oppression.  An 
interest  is  by  this  means  held  out  to  multitudes  of  the  inferior 
sort,  in  obtaining  a  salary  of  eighteen  livres  a  day  (to  them 
a  vast  object)  besides  the  pleasure  of  a  residence  in  Paris 
and  their  share  in  the  government  of  the  kingdom.     The 


ITS  INEQUALITY,  211 

more  the  objects  of  ambition  are  multiplied  and  become 
democratic,  just  in  that  proportion  the  rich  are  endangered. 

Thus  it  must  fare  between  the  poor  and  the  rich  in  the 
province  deemed  aristocratic,  which  in  its  internal  relation  is 
the  very  reverse  of  that  character.  In  its  external  relation, 
that  is,  its  relation  to  the  other  provinces,  I  cannot  see  how 
the  unequal  representation,  which  is  given  to  masses  on 
account  of  wealth,  becomes  the  means  of  preserving  the 
equipoise  and  the  tranquillity  of  the  commonwealth.  For  if 
it  be  one  of  the  objects  to  secure  the  weak  from  being 
crushed  by  the  strong  (as  in  all  society  undoubtedly  it  is) 
how  are  the  smaller  and  poorer  of  these  masses  to  be  saved 
from  the  tyranny  of  the  more  wealthy  ?  Is  it  by  adding  to 
the  wealthy  further  and  more  systematical  means  of  oppress- 
ing them  ?  When  we  come  to  a  balance  of  representation 
between  corporate  bodies,  provincial  interests,  emulations, 
and  jealousies  are  full  as  likely  to  arise  among  them  as 
among  individuals ;  and  their  divisions  are  likely  to  produce 
a  much  hotter  spirit  of  dissention,  and  something  leading 
much  more  nearly  to  a  war. 

J  see  that  these  aristocratic  masses  are  made  upon  what 
is  called  the  principle  of  direct  contribution.  Nothing  can 
be  a  more  unequal  standard  than  this.  The  indirect  con- 
tribution, that  which  arises  from  duties  on  consumption,  is 
in  truth  a  better  standard,  and  follows  and  discovers  wealth 
more  naturally  than  this  of  direct  contribution.  It  is 
difficult  indeed  to  fix  a  standard  of  local  preference  on 
account  of  the  one,  or  of  the  other,  or  of  both,  because 
some  provinces  may  pay  the  more  of  either  or  of  both,  on 
account  of  causes  not  intrinsic,  but  originating  from  those 
very  districts  over  whom  they  have  obtained  a  preference  in 
consequence  of  their  ostensible  contribution.  If  the  masses 
were  independent  sovereign  bodies,  who  were  to  provide  for  a 
federative   treasury   by   distinct    contingents,   and  that   the 

P    2 


212  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

revenue  had  not  (as  it  has)  many  impositions  running 
through  the  whole,  which  affect  men  individually,  and  not 
corporately,  and  which,  by  their  nature,  confound  all  terri- 
torial limits,  something  might  be  said  for  the  basis  of  con- 
tribution as  founded  on  masses.  But  of  all  things,  this 
representation,  to  be  measured  by  contribution,  is  the  most 
difficult  to  settle  upon  principles  of  equity  in  a  country, 
which  considers  its  districts  as  members  of  an  whole.  For  a 
great  city,  such  as  Bourdeaux  or  Paris,  appears  to  pay  a 
vast  body  of  duties,  almost  out  of  all  assignable  proportion 
to  other  pkces,  and  -its  mass  is  considered  accordingly. 
But  are  these  titles  the  true  contributors  in  that  proportion  ? 
No.  The  consumers  of  the  commodities  imported  into 
Bourdeaux,  who  are  scattered  through  all  France,  pay  the 
import  duties  of  Bourdeaux.  The  produce  of  the  vintage 
in  Guienne  and  Languedoc  gives  to  that  city  the  means  of  its 
contribution  growing  out  of  an  export  commerce.  The 
landholders  who  spend  their  estates  in  Paris,  and  are  thereby 
the  creators  of  that  city,  contribute  for  Paris  from  the 
provinces  out  of  which  their  revenue  arise.  Very  nearly  the 
same  arguments  will  apply  to  the  representative  share  given 
on  account  of  direc/  contribution :  because  the  direct  con- 
tribution must  be  assessed  on  wealth  real  or  presumed ;  and 
that  local  wealth  will  itself  arise  from  causes  not  local,  and 
which  therefore  in  equity  ought  not  to  produce  a  local 
preference. 

It  is  very  remarkable,  that  in  this  fundamental  regulation, 
which  settles  the  representation  of  the  mass  upon  the  direct 
contribution,  they  have  not  yet  settled  how  that  direct 
contribution  shall  be  laid,  and  how  apportioned.  Perhaps 
there  is  some  latent  policy  towards  the  continuance  of  the 
present  assembly  in  this  strange  procedure.  However,  until 
they  do  this,  they  can  have  no  certain  constitution.  It  must 
depend  at  last  upon  the  system  of  taxation,  and  must  vary 


COMPARISON  OF   THE  BASES.  21$ 

With  every  variation  in  that  system.  As  they  have  contrived 
matters,  their  taxation  does  not  so  much  depend  on  their 
constitution,  as  their  constitution  on  their  taxation.  This 
must  introduce  great  confusion  among  the  masses ;  as  the 
variable  quaUfication  for  votes  within  the  district  must,  if  ever 
real  contested  elections  take  place,  cause  infinite  internal 
controversies. 

Y  To  compare  together  the  three  bases,  not  on  their 
political  reason,  but  on  the  ideas  on  which  the  assembly 
works,  and  to  try  its  consistency  with  itself,  we  cannot  avoid 
observing,  that  the  principle  which  the  committee  call  the 
basis  oi  population,  does  not  begin  to  operate  from  the  same 
point  with  the  two  other  principles  called  the  bases  of 
territory  and  of  contribution,  which  are  both  of  an  aristocratic 
nature.  The  consequence  is,  that  where  all  three  begin  to 
operate  together,  there  is  the  most  absurd  inequality  pro- 
duced by  the  operation  of  the  former  on  the  two  latter 
principles.  Every  canton  contains  four  square  leagues,  and 
is  estimated  to  contain,  on  the  average,  4,000  inhabitants, 
or  680  voters  in  the  primary  assemblies,  which  vary  in 
numbers  with  the  population  of  the  canton,  and  send  one 
deputy  to  the  commune  for  every  200  voters.  Nine  cantons 
make  a  commune. 

Now  let  us  take  a  canton  containing  a  sea-port  town  of 
trade,  or  a  great  manufacturing  town.  Let  us  suppose  the 
population  of  this  canton  to  be  12,700  inhabitants,  or  2,193 
voters,  forming  three  primary  assemblies,  and  sending  ten 
deputies  to  the  commu7te. 

Oppose  to  this  one  canton  two  others  of  the  remaining 
eight  in  the  same  commune.  These  we  may  suppose  to 
have  their  fair  population  of  4,000  inhabitants,  and  680 
voters  each,  or  8,000  inhabitants  and  1,360  voters,  both 
together.  These  will  form  only  two  primary  assemblies,  and 
fiend  only  six  deputies  to  the  commune. 


214  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

When  the  assembly  of  the  commune  comes  to  vote  on  the 
basis  of  territory,  which  principle  is  first  admitted  to  operate 
in  that  assembly,  the  sirtgle  canton  which  has  half  the 
territory  of  the  other  two,  will  have  ten  voices  to  six  in  the 
election  of  three  deputies  to  the  assembly  of  the  department, 
chosen  on  the  express  ground  of  a  representation  of 
territory. 

This  inequality,  striking  as  it  is,  will  be  yet  highly 
aggravated,  if  we  suppose,  as  we  fairly  may,  the  several 
other  cantons  of  the  commune  to  fall  proportionably  short 
of  the  average  population,  as  much  as  the  principal  canton 
exceeds  it.  Now,  as  to  the  basis  of  contribution,  which  also 
is  a  principle  admitted  first  to  operate  in  the  assembly  of  the 
commune.  Let  us  again  take  ci««  canton,  such  as  is  stated 
above.  If  the  whole  of  the  direct  contributions  paid  by  a 
great  trading  or  manufacturing  town  be  divided  equally 
among  the  inhabitants,  each  individual  will  be  found  to  pay 
much  more  than  an  individual  living  in  the  country  accord- 
ing to  the  same  average.  The  whole  paid  by  the  inhabitants 
of  the  former  will  be  more  than  the  whole  paid  by  the 
inhabitants  of  the  latter — we  may  fairly  assume  one  third 
more.  Then  the  12,700  inhabitants,  or  2,193  voters  of  the 
canton  will  pay  as  much  as  19,050  inhabitants,  or  3,289 
voters  of  the  other  cantons,  which  are  nearly  the  estimated 
proportion  of  inhabitants  and  voters  of  five  other  cantons. 
Now  the  2,193  voters  will,  as  I  before  said,  send  only /^ 
deputies  to  the  assembly  ;  the  3,289  voters  will  send  sixteen. 
Thus,  for  an  equal  share  in  the  contribution  of  the  whole 
commune,  there  will  be  a  difference  of  sixteen  voices  to  ten  in 
voting  for  deputies  to  be  chosen  on  the  principle  of  repre- 
senting the  general  contribution  of  the  whole  covimune. 

By  the  same  mode  of  computation  we  shall  find  15,875 
inhabitants,  or  2,741  voters  of  the  other  cantons,  who  pay 
one-sixth  less  to  the  contribution  of  the  whole  commune,  will 


THE  PLAN   UNNATURAL.  21$ 

have  three  voices   more   than   the    12,700   inhabitants,   or 
2,193  voters  of  the  one  canton. 

Such  is  the  fantastical  and  unjust  inequality  between  mass 
and  mass,  in  this  curious  repartition  of  the  rights  of 
representation  arising  out  of  territory  and  contribution. 
The  qualifications  which  these  confer  are  in  truth  negative 
qualifications,  that  give  a  right  in  an  inverse  proportion  to 
the  possession  of  them. 

In  this  whole  contrivance  of  the  three  bases,  consider  it 
in  any  light  you  please,  I  do  not  see  a  variety  of  objects, 
reconciled  in  one  consistent  whole,  but  several  contradictory 
principles  reluctantly  and  irreconcileably  brought  and  held 
together  by  your  philosophers,  like  wild  beasts  shut  up  in  a 
cage,  to  claw  and  bite  each  other  to  their  mutual  destruction. 

I  am  afraid  I  have  gone  too  far  into  their  way  of  con- 
sidering the  formation  of  a  constitution.  They  have  much, 
but  bad,  metaphysics  ;  much,  but  bad,  geometry  ;  much,  but 
false,  proportionate  arithmetic  ;  but  if  it  were  all  as  exact  as 
metaphysics,  geometry,  and  arithmetic  ought  to  be,  and  if 
their  schemes  were  perfectly  consistent  in  all  their  parts,  it 
would  make  only  a  more  fair  and  sightly  vision.  It  is  re- 
markable, that  in  a  great  arrangement  of  mankind,  not  one 
reference  whatsoever  is  to  be  found  to  any  thing  moral  or  any 
thing  politic ;  nothing  that  relates  to  the  concerns,  the  actions, 
the  passions,  the  interests  of  men.     Hominem  non  sapiunt. 

You  see  I  only  consider  this  constitution  as  electoral,  and 
leading  by  steps  to  the  National  Assembly.  I  do  not  enter 
into  the  internal  government  of  the  Departments,  and  their 
genealogy  through  the  Communes  and  Cantons.  These 
local  governments  are,  in  the  original  plan,  to  be  as  nearly 
as  possible  composed  in  the  same  manner  and  on  the  same 
principles  with  the  elective  assemblies.  They  are  each  of 
them  bodies  perfectly  compact  and  rounded  in  themselves. 

You  cannot  but  perceive  in  this  scheme,  that  it  has  a 


2l6  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

direct  and  immediate  tendency  to  sever  France  into  a 
variety  of  republics,  and  to  render  them  totally  independent 
of  each  other,  without  any  direct  constitutional  means  of 
coherence,  connection,  or  subordination,  except  what  may 
be  derived  from  their  acquiescence  in  the  determinations  of 
the  general  congress  of  the  ambassadors  from  each  indepen- 
dent republic.  Such  in  reality  is  the  National  Assembly, 
and  such  governments  I  admit  do  exist  in  the  world,  though 
in  forms  infinitely  more  suitable  to  the  local  and  habitual 
circumstances  of  their  people.  But  such  associations,  rather 
than  bodies  politic,  have  generally  been  the  effect  of  necessity, 
not  choice ;  and  I  believe  the  present  French  power  is  the 
very  first  body  of  citizens,  who,  having  obtained  full  authority 
to  do  with  their  country  what  they  pleased,  have  chosen  to 
dissever  it  in  this  barbarous  manner. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  observe,  that  in  the  spirit  of  this 
geometrical  distribution,  and  arithmetical  arrangement,  these 
pretended  citizens  treat  France  exactly  like  a  country  of 
conquest.  Acting  as  conquerors,  they  have  imitated  the 
policy  of  the  harshest  of  that  harsh  race.  The  policy  of 
such  barbarous  victors,  who  contemn  a  subdued  people,  and 
insult  their  feelings,  has  ever  been,  as  much  as  in  them  lay, 
to  destroy  all  vestiges  of  the  antient  country,  in  religion,  in 
polity,  in  laws,  and  in  manners ;  to  confound  all  territorial 
limits;  to  produce  .a  general  poverty;  to  put  up  their 
properties  to  auction;  to  crush  their  princes,  nobles,  and 
pontiffs ;  to  lay  low  every  thing  which  had  lifted  its  head 
above  the  level,  or  which  could  serve  to  combine  or  rally, 
in  their  distresses,  the  disbanded  people,  under  the  standard 
of  old  opinion.  They  have  made  France  free  in  the  manner 
in  which  those  sincere  friends  to  the  rights  of  mankind,  the 
Romans,  freed  Greece,  Macedon,  and  other  nations.  They 
destroyed  the  bonds  of  their  union,  under  colour  of  providing 
for  the  independence  of  each  of  their  cities. 


' FACIES  HIPPOCRATICA,^  21 7 

\/  When  the  members  who  compose  these  new  bodies  of 
cantons,  communes,  and  departments,  arrangements  pur- 
posely produced  through  the  medium  of  confusioH,  begin  to 
act,  they  will  find  themselves,  in  a  great  measure,  strangers 
to  one  another.  The  electors  and  elected  throughout, 
especially  in  the  rural  cantons,  will  be  frequently  without  any 
civil  habitudes  or  connections,  or  any  of  that  natural  dis- 
cipline which  is  the  soul  of  a  true  republic.  Magistrates  and 
collectors  of  revenue  are  now  no  longer  acquainted  with 
their  districts,  bishops  with  their  dioceses,  or  curates  with 
their  parishes.  These  new  colonies  of  the  rights  of  men 
bear  a  strong  resemblance  to  that  sort  of  military  colonies 
which  Tacitus  has  observed  upon  in  the  declining  policy  of 
Rome.  In  better  and  wiser  days  (whatever  course  they  took 
with  foreign  nations)  they  were  careful  to  make  the  elements 
of  a  methodical  subordination  and  settlement  to  be  coeval ; 
and  even  to  lay  the  foundations  of  civil  discipline  in  the 
military*.  But,  when  all  the  good  arts  had  fallen  into  ruin, 
they  proceeded,  as  your  assembly  does,  upon  the  equality  of 
men,  and  with  as  httle  judgment,  and  as  little  care  for 
those  things  which  make  a  republic  tolerable  or  durable. 
But  in  this,  as  well  as  almost  every  instance,  your  new 
commonwealth  is  born,  and  bred,  and  fed,  in  those  corrup- 
tions which  mark  degenerated  and  worn  out  republics. 
Your  child  comes  into  the  world  with  the  symptoms  of 
death;  the  fades  Hippocratica  forms  the  character  of  its 
physiognomy,  and  the  prognostic  of  its  fate. 

The  legislators  who  framed  the  antient  republics  knew 

*  Non,  lit  olim,  universse  legiones  deducebantur  cum  tribunis,  et  cen- 
turionibus,  et  sui  cujusque  ordinis  militibus,  ut  consensu  et  caritate  rem- 
publicam  afficerent ;  sed  ignoti  inter  se,  diversis  manipulis,  sine  rectore, 
sine  affectibus  mutuis,  quasi  ex  alio  genere  moitalium,  repente  in  unum 
collecti,  numerus  magis  quam  colonia.  Tac.  Annal,  1,  14.  sect.  27.  All 
this  will  be  still  more  applicable  to  the  unconnected,  rotary,  biennial 
national  assemblies,  in  this  absurd  and  senseless  constitution. 


2l8  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

that  their  business  was  too  arduous  to  be  accomplished  with 
no  better  apparatus  than  the  metaphysics  of  an  under- 
graduate, and  the  mathematics  and  arithmetic  of  an  excise- 
man. They  had  to  do  with  men,  and  they  were  obliged  to 
study  human  nature.  They  had  to  do  with  citizens,  and 
they  were  obliged  to  study  the  effects  of  those  habits  which 
are  communicated  by  the  circumstances  of  civil  life.  They 
were  sensible  that  the  operation  of  this  second  nature  on  the 
first  produced  a  new  combination ;  and  thence  arose  many 
diversities  amongst  men,  according  to  their  birth,  their 
education,  their  professions,  the  periods  of  their  lives,  their 
residence  in  towns  or  in  the  country,  their  several  ways  of 
acquiring  and  of  fixing  property,  and  according  to  the 
quality  of  the  property  itself,  all  which  rendered  them  as  it 
were  so  many  difi'erent  species  of  animals.  From  hence 
they  thought  themselves  obliged  to  dispose  their  citizens  into 
such  classes,  and  to  place  them  in  such  situations  in  the 
state  as  their  peculiar  habits  might  qualify  them  to  fill,  and 
to  allot  to  them  such  appropriated  privileges  as  might  secure 
to  them  what  their  specific  occasions  required,  and  which 
might  furnish  to  each  description  such  force  as  might 
protect  it  in  the  conflict  caused  by  the  diversity  of  interests, 
that  must  exist,  and  must  contend  in  all  complex  society: 
for  the  legislator  would  have  been  ashamed,  that  the  coarse 
husbandman  should  well  know  how  to  assort  and  to  use  his 
sheep,  horses,  and  oxen,  and  should  have  enough  of 
common  sense  not  to  abstract  and  equalize  them  all  into 
animals,  without  providing  for  each  kind  an  appropriate 
food,  care,  and  employment;  whilst  he,  the  oeconomist, 
disposer,  and  shepherd  of  his  own  kindred,  subliming  him- 
self into  an  airy  metaphysician,  was  resolved  to  know  nothing 
of  his  flocks,  but  as  men  in  general.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  Montesquieu  observed  very  justly,  that  in  their  classifi- 
cation of  the  citizens,  the  great  legislators  of  antiquity  made 


USE   OF  CLASSIFICATION.  219 

the  greatest  display  of  their  powers,  and  even  soared  above 
themselves.  It  is  here  that  your  modern  legislators  have 
gone  deep  into  the  negative  series,  and  sunk  even  below 
their  own  nothing.  As  the  first  sort  of  legislators  attended 
to  the  different  kinds  of  citizens,  and  combined  them  into 
one  commonwealth,  the  others,  the  metaphysical  and  alche- 
mistical  legislators,  have  taken  the  direct  contrary  course. 
They  have  attempted  to  confound  all  sorts  of  citizens,  as 
well  as  they  could,  into  one  homogeneous  mass ;  and  then 
they  divided  this  their  amalgama  into  a  number  of  incoherent 
republics.  They  reduce  men  to  loose  counters  merely  for 
the  sake  of  simple  telling,  and  not  to  figures  whose  power  is 
to  arise  from  their  place  in  the  table.  The  elements  of 
their  own  metaphysics  might  have  taught  them  better 
lessons.  The  troll  of  their  categorical  table  might  have 
informed  them  that  there  was  something  else  in  the  intel- 
lectual world  besides  substance  and  quantity.  They  might 
learn  from  the  catechism  of  metaphysics  that  there  were 
eight  heads  more*,  in  every  complex  deliberation,  which 
they  have  never  thought  of,  though  these,  of  all  the  ten,  are 
the  subject  on  which  the  skill  of  man  can  operate  any  thing 
at  all. 

So  far  from  this  able  disposition  of  some  of  the  old 
republican  legislators,  which  follows  with  a  solicitous  ac- 
curacy, the  moral  conditions  and  propensities  of  men,  they 
have  levelled  and  crushed  together  all  the  orders  which  they 
found,  even  under  the  coarse  unartificial  arrangement  of  the 
monarchy,  in  which  mode  of  government  the  classing  of 
the  citizens  is  not  of  so  much  importance  as  in  a  republic. 
It  is  true,  however,  that  every  such  classification,  if  properly 
ordered,  is  good  in  all  forms  of  government ;  and  composes 
a  strong  barrier  against  the  excesses  of  despotism,  as  well 
as  it  is  the  necessary  means  of  giving  effect  and  permanence 

*  Qualitas,  Relatio,  Actio,  Passio,  Ubi,  Quando,  Situs,  Habitus. 


220  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

to  a  republic.  For  want  of  something  of  this  kind,  if  the 
present  project  of  a  republic  should  fail,  all  securities  to  a 
moderated  freedom  fail  along  with  it;  all  the  indirect  re- 
straints which  mitigate  despotism  are  removed ;  insomuch 
that  if  monarchy  should  ever  again  obtain  an  entire  ascen- 
dency in  France,  under  this  or  under  any  other  dynasty,  it 
will  probably  be,  if  not  voluntarily  tempered  at  setting  out, 
by  the  wise  and  virtuous  counsels  of  the  prince,  the  most 
completely  arbitrary  power  that  has  ever  appeared  on  earth. 
This  is  to  play  a  most  desperate  game. 

The  confusion,  which  attends  on  all  such  proceedings,  they 
even  declare  to  be  one  of  their  objects,  and  they  hope  to 
secure  their  constitution  by  a  terror  of  a  return  of  those 
evils  which  attended  their  making  it.  '  By  this,'  say  they,  '  its 
destruction  will  become  difficult  to  authority,  which  cannot 
break  it  up  without  the  entire  disorganization  of  the  whole 
state.'  They  presume,  that  if  this  authority  should  ever  come 
to  the  same  degree  of  power  that  they  have  acquired,  it 
would  make  a  more  moderate  and  chastised  use  of  it,  and 
would  piously  tremble  entirely  to  disorganise  the  state  in  the 
savage  manner  that  they  have  done.  They  expect,  from  the 
virtues  of  returning  despotism,  the  security  which  is  to  be 
enjoyed  by  the  offspring  of  their  popular  vices. 

I  wish.  Sir,  that  you  and  my  readers  would  give  an 
attentive  perusal  to  the  work  of  M.  de  Calonne,  on  this 
subject.  It  is  indeed  not  only  an  eloquent  but  an  able  and 
instructive  performance.  I  confine  myself  to  what  he  says 
relative  to  the  constitution  of  the  new  state,  and  to  the 
condition  of  the  revenue.  As  to  the  disputes  of  this 
minister  with  his  rivals,  I  do  not  wish  to  pronounce  upon 
them.  As  little  do  I  mean  to  hazard  any  opinion  con- 
cerning his  ways  and  means,  financial  or  political,  for  taking 
his  country  out  of  its  present  disgraceful  and  deplorable 
situation  of  servitude,  anarchy,  bankruptcy,   and   beggary. 


DISOR  GA  NIZA  TION.  2  2 1 

I  cannot  speculate  quite  so  sanguinely  as  he  does:  but 
he  is  a  Frenchman,  and  has  a  closer  duty  relative  to  those 
objects,  and  better  means  of  judging  of  them,  than  I  can  have. 
I  wish  that  the  formal  avowal  which  he  refers  to,  made  by 
one  of  the  principal  leaders  in  the  assembly,  concerning  the 
tendency  of  their  scheme  to  bring  France  not  only  from  a 
monarchy  to  a  republic,  but  from  a  republic  to  a  mere 
confederacy,  may  be  very  particularly  attended  to.  It  adds 
new  force  to  my  observations ;  and  indeed  M.  de  Calonne's 
work  supplies  my  deficiencies  by  many  new  and  striking 
arguments  on  most  of  the  subjects  of  this  Letter*. 

It  is  this  resolution,  to  break  their  country  into  separate 
republics,  which  has  driven  them  into  the  greatest  number 
of  their  difficulties  and  contradictions.  If  it  were  not  for 
this,  all  the  questions  of  exact  equality,  and  these  balances, 
never  to  be  settled,  of  individual  rights,  population,  and  con- 
tribution, would  be  wholly  useless.  The  representation, 
though  derived  from  parts,  would  be  a  duty  which  equally 
regarded  the  whole.  Each  deputy  to  the  assembly  would 
be  the  representative  of  France,  and  of  all  its  descriptions, 
of  the  many  and  of  the  few,  of  the  rich  and  of  the  poor,  of 
the  great  districts  and  of  the  small.  All  these  districts  would 
themselves  be  subordinate  to  some  standing  authority, 
existing  independently  of  them ;  an  authority  in  which  their 
representation,  and  every  thing  that  belongs  to  it,  originated, 
and  to  which  it  was  pointed.  This  standing,  unalterable, 
fundamental  government  would  make,  and  it  is  the  only 
thing  which  could  make,  that  territory  truly  and  properly  an 
whole.  With  us,  when  we  elect  popular  representatives,  we 
send  them  to  a  council,  in  which  each  man  individually  is  a 
subject,  and  submitted  to  a  government  complete  in  all  its 
ordinary  functions.  With  you  the  elective  assembly  is  the 
sovereign,  and  the  sole  sovereign:  all  the  members  are; 
*  See  L'Etat  de  la  France,  p.  363. 


2%%  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

therefore  integral  parts  of  this  sole  sovereignty.  But  with 
us  it  is  totally  different.  With  us  the  representative, 
separated  from  the  other  parts,  can  have  no  action  and  no 
existence.  The  government  is  the  point  of  reference  of  the 
several  members  and  districts  of  our  representation.  This 
is  the  center  of  our  unity.  This  government  of  reference  is 
a  trustee  for  the  whole,  and  not  for  the  parts.  So  is  the 
other  branch  of  our  public  council,  I  mean  the  house  of 
lords.  With  us  the  king  and  the  lords  are  several  and 
joint  securities  for  the  equality  of  each  district,  each  province, 
each  city.  When  did  you  hear  in  Great  Britain  of  any 
province  suffering  from  the  inequality  of  its  representation ; 
what  district  from  having  no  representation  at  all?  Not 
only  our  monarchy  and  our  peerage  secure  the  equality  on 
which  our  unity  depends,  but  it  is  the  spirit  of  the  house  of 
commons  itself.  The  very  inequality  of  representation, 
which  is  so  foolishly  complained  of,  is  perhaps  the  very 
thing  which  prevents  us  from  thinking  or  acting  as  members 
for  districts.  Cornwall  elects  as  many  members  as  all 
Scotland.  But  is  Cornwall  better  taken  care  of  than  Scot- 
land ?  Few  trouble  their  heads  about  any  of  your  bases,  out 
of  some  giddy  clubs.  Most  of  those,  who  wish  for  any 
change,  upon  any  plausible  grounds,  desire  it  on  different 
ideas. 

Your  new  constitution  is  the  very  reverse  of  ours  in  its 
principle;  and  I  am  astonished  how  any  persons  could 
dream  of  holding  out  any  thing  done  in  it  as  an  example  for 
Great  Britain.  With  you  there  is  little,  or  rather  no,  con- 
nection between  the  last  representative  and  the  first  con- 
stituent. The  member  who  goes  to  the  national  assembly  is 
not  chosen  by  the  people,  nor  accountable  to  them.  There 
are  three  elections  before  he  is  chosen :  two  sets  of  magistracy 
intervene  between  him  and  the  primary  assembly,  so  as  to 
render  him,  as  I  have  said,  an  ambassador  of  a  state,  and 


NATURE   OF  ELECTIONS.  223 

not  the  representative  of  the  people  within  a  state.  By  this 
the  whole  spirit  of  the  election  is  changed;  nor  can  any 
corrective  your  constitution-mongers  have  devised  render 
him  any  thing  else  than  what  he  is.  The  very  attempt  to 
do  it  would  inevitably  introduce  a  confusion,  if  possible, 
more  horrid  than  the  present.  There  is  no  way  to  make  a 
connection  between  the  original  constituent  and  the  repre- 
sentative, but  by  the  circuitous  means  which  may  lead 
the  candidate  to  apply  in  the  first  instance  to  the  primary 
electors,  in  order  that  by  their  authoritative  instructions 
(and  something  more  perhaps)  these  primary  electors  may 
force  the  two  succeeding  bodies  of  electors  to  make  a 
choice  agreeable  to  their  wishes.  But  this  would  plainly 
subvert  the  whole  scheme.  It  would  be  to  plunge  them 
back  into  that  tumult  and  confusion  of  popular  election, 
which,  by  their  interposed  gradation  elections,  they  mean  to 
avoid,  and  at  length  to  risque  the  whole  fortune  of  the  state 
with  those  who  have  the  least  knowledge  of  it,  and  the  least 
interest  in  it.  This  is  a  perpetual  dilemma,  into  which  they 
are  thrown  by  the  vicious,  weak,  and  contradictory  principles 
they  have  chosen.  Unless  the  people  break  up  and  level 
this  gradation,  it  is  plain  that  they  do  not  at  all  substantially 
elect  to  the  assembly ;  indeed  they  elect  as  little  in  appear- 
ance as  reality. 

What  is  it  we  all  seek  for  in  an  election  ?  To  answer  its 
real  purposes,  you  must  first  possess  the  means  of  knowing 
the  fitness  of  your  man;  and  then  you  must  retain  some 
hold  upon  him  by  personal  obligation  or  dependence.  For 
what  end  are  these  primary  electors  complimented,  or  rather 
mocked,  with  a  choice  ?  They  can  never  know  any  thing  of 
the  qualities  of  him  that  is  to  serve  them,  nor  has  he  any 
obligation  whatsoever  to  them.  Of  all  the  powers  unfit  to 
be  delegated  by  those  who  have  any  real  means  of  judging, 
that  most  peculiarly  unfit  is  what  relates  to  a  personal  choice. 


224  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

In  case  of  abuse,  that  body  of  primary  electors  never  can 
call  the  representative  to  an  account  for  his  conduct.  He  is 
too  far  removed  from  them  in  the  chain  of  representation. 
If  he  acts  improperly  at  the  end  of  his  two  years'  lease,  it 
does  not  concern  him  for  two  years  more.  By  the  new 
French  constitution,  the  best  and  the  wisest  representatives 
go  equally  with  the  worst  into  this  Limbus  Pairum.  Their 
bottoms  are  supposed  foul,  and  they  must  go  into  dock  to 
be  refitted.  Every  man  who  has  served  in  an  assembly  is 
ineligible  for  two  years  after.  Just  as  the  magistrates  begin 
to  learn  their  trade,  like  chimney-sweepers,  they  are  dis- 
qualified for  exercising  it.  Superficial,  new,  petulant  acqui- 
sition, and  interrupted,  dronish,  broken,  ill  recollection,  is  to 
be  the  destined  character  of  all  your  future  governors. 
Your  constitution  has  too  much  of  jealousy  to  have  much 
of  sense  in  it.  You  consider  the  breach  of  trust  in  the 
representative  so  principally,  that  you  do  not  at  all  regard 
the  question  of  his  fitness  to  execute  it. 

This  purgatory  interval  is  not  unfavourable  to  a  faithless 
representative,  who  may  be  as  good  a  canvasser  as  he  was  a 
bad  governor.  In  this  time  he  may  cabal  himself  into  a 
superiority  over  the  wisest  and  most  virtuous.  As,  in  the 
end,  all  the  members  of  this  elective  constitution  are  equally 
fugitive,  and  exist  only  for  the  election,  they  may  be  no 
longer  the  same  persons  who  had  chosen  him,  to  whom  he 
is  to  be  responsible  when  he  solicits  for  a  renewal  of  his  trust. 
To  call  all  the  secondary  electors  of  the  Commune  to  account, 
is  ridiculous,  impracticable,  and  unjust;  they  may  themselves 
have  been  deceived  in  their  choice,  as  the  third  set  of 
electors,  those  of  the  Department,  may  be  in  theirs.  In 
your  elections  responsibility  cannot  exist. 

Finding  no  sort  of  principle  of  coherence  with  each  other 
in  the  nature  and  constitution  of  the  several  new  republics 
of  France,  I  considered  what  cement   the   legislators  had 


THE   PAPER    CURRENCY.  225 

provided  for  them  from  any  extraneous  materials.  Their 
confederations,  their  spectacles,  their  civic  feasts,  and  their 
enthusiasm,  I  take  no  notice  of;  They  are  nothing  but  mere 
tricks ;  but  tracing  their  policy  through  their  actions,  I  think 
I  can  distinguish  the  arrangements  by  which  they  propose  to 
hold  these  republics  together.  The  first,  is  the  confiscation, 
with  the  compulsory  paper  currency  annexed  to  it ;  the 
second,  is  the  supreme  power  of  the  city  of  Paris ;  the  third, 
is  the  general  army  of  the  state.  Of  this  last  I  shall  reserve 
what  I  have  to  say,  until  I  come  to  consider  the  army  as  an 
head  by  itself. 

As  to  the  operation  of  the  first  (the  confiscation  and  paper 
currency)  merely  as  a  cement,  I  cannot  deny  that  these,  the 
one  depending  on  the  other,  may  for  some  time  compose 
some  sort  of  cement,  if  their  madness  and  folly  in  the 
management,  and  in  the  tempering  of  the  parts  together, 
does  not  produce  a  repulsion  in  the  very  outset.  But 
allowing  to  the  scheme  some  coherence  and  some  duration, 
it  appears  to  me,  that  if,  after  a  while,  the  confiscation 
should  not  be  found  sufficient  to  support  the  paper  coinage 
(as  I  am  morally  certain  it  will  not)  then,  instead  of  cement- 
ing, it  will  add  infinitely  to  the  dissociation,  distraction,  and 
confusion  of  these  confederate  republics,  both  with  relation 
to  each  other,  and  to  the  several  parts  within  themselves. 
But  if  the  confiscation  should  so  far  succeed  as  to  sink  the 
paper  currency,  the  cement  is  gone  with  the  circulation.  In 
the  mean  time  its  binding  force  will  be  very  uncertain,  and  it 
will  straiten  or  relax  with  every  variation  in  the  credit  of  the 
paper. 

One  thing  only  is  certain  in  this  scheme,  which  is  an 
effect  seemingly  collateral,  but  direct,  I  have  no  doubt,  in 
the  minds  of  those  who  conduct  this  business,  that  is,  its 
effect  in  producing  an  Oligarchy  in  every  one  of  the 
republics.     A  paper  circulation,  not   founded  on  any  real 

VOL.  n.  Q 


225  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

money  deposited  or  engaged  for,  amounting  already  to  four- 
and-forty  millions  of  English  money,  and  this  currency  by 
force  substituted  in  the  place  of  the  coin  of  the  kingdom, 
becoming  thereby  the  substance  of  its  revenue,  as  well  as  the 
medium  of  all  its  commercial  and  civil  intercourse,  must  put 
the  whole  of  what  power,  authority,  and  influence  is  left,  in 
any  form  whatsoever  it  may  assume,  into  the  hands  of  the 
managers  and  conductors  of  this  circulation. 

In  England  we  feel  the  influence  of  the  bank ;  though  it 
is  only  the  center  of  a  voluntary  dealing.  He  knows  little 
indeed  of  the  influence  of  money  upon  mankind,  who  does 
not  see  the  force  of  the  management  of  a  monied  concern 
which  is  so  much  more  extensive,  and  in  its  nature  so  much 
more  depending  on  the  managers  than  any  of  ours.  But 
this  is  not  merely  a  money  concern.  There  is  another 
member  in  the  system  inseparably  connected  with  this 
money  management.  It  consists  in  the  means  of  drawing 
out  at  discretion  portions  of  the  confiscated  lands  for  sale ; 
and  carrying  on  a  process  of  continual  transmutation  of 
paper  into  land,  and  land  into  paper.  When  we  follow  this 
process  in  its  eff"ects,  we  may  conceive  something  of  the 
intensity  of  the  force  with  which  this  system  must  operate. 
By  this  means  the  spirit  of  money-jobbing  and  speculation 
goes  into  the  mass  of  land  itself,  and  incorporates  with  it. 
By  this  kind  of  operation,  that  species  of  property  becomes 
(as  it  were)  volatihzed;  it  assumes  an  unnatural  and  monstrous 
activity,  and  thereby  throws  into  the  hands  of  the  several 
managers,  principal  and  subordinate,  Parisian  and  provincial, 
all  the  representative  of  money,  and  perhaps  a  full  tenth 
part  of  all  the  land  in  France,  which  has  now  acquired  the 
worst  and  most  pernicious  part  of  the  evil  of  a  paper 
circulation,  the  greatest  possible  uncertainty  in  its  value. 
They  have  reversed  the  Latonian  kindness  to  the  landed 
property  of  Delos.     They  have  sent   theirs   to   be  blown 


NO  BENEFIT  TO  FARMERS.  227 

about,  like  the  light  fragments  of  a  wreck,  oras  et  liitora 
circum. 

The  new  dealers  being  all  habitually  adventurers,  and 
without  any  fixed  habits  or  local  predilections,  will  purchase 
to  job  out  again,  as  the  market  of  paper,  or  of  money,  or  of 
land  shall  present  an  advantage.  For  though  an  holy  bishop 
thinks  that  agriculture  will  derive  great  advantages  from 
the  'enlightened^  usurers  who  are  to  purchase  the  church 
confiscations,  I,  who  am  not  a  good,  but  an  old  farmer, 
with  great  humility  beg  leave  to  tell  his  late  lordship,  that 
usury  is  not  a  tutor  of  agriculture;  and  if  the  word 
'  enlightened'  be  understood  according  to  the  new  dictionary, 
as  it  always  is  in  your  new  schools,  I  cannot  conceive  how 
a  man's  not  beheving  in  God  can  teach  him  to  cultivate  the 
earth  with  the  least  of  any  additional  skill  or  encouragement. 
*  Diis  immortalibus  sero,'  said  an  old  Roman,  when  he  held 
one  handle  of  the  plough,  whilst  Death  held  the  other. 
Though  you  were  to  join  in  the  commission  all  the  directors 
of  the  two  academies  to  the  directors  of  the  Caisse  d'Escompte, 
one  old  experienced  peasant  is  worth  them  all.  I  have  got 
more  information,  upon  a  curious  and  interesting  branch  of 
husbandry,  in  one  short  conversation  with  a  .Carthusian 
monk,  than  I  have  derived  from  all  the  Bank  directors  that  I 
have  ever  conversed  with.  However,  there  is  no  cause  for 
apprehension  from  the  meddling  of  money- dealers  with 
rural  ceconomy.  These  gentlemen  are  too  wise  in  their 
generation.  At  first,  perhaps,  their  tender  and  susceptible 
imaginations  may  be  captivated  with  the  innocent  and 
unprofitable  delights  of  a  pastoral  life ;  but  in  a  little  time 
they  will  find  that  agriculture  is  a  trade  much  more  laborious, 
and  much  less  lucrative  than  that  which  they  had  left.  After 
making  its  panegyric,  they  will  turn  their  backs  on  it  like 
their  great  precursor  and  prototype.  They  may,  like  him, 
begin  by  singing,  '  Beattts  ille ' — but  what  will  be  the  end  ? 

Q  2 


228  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

H(Bc  ubi  locutus  fanerator  Alphi'us, 

Jam  Jam  futurus  rusticus 
Omnem  redegit  idibus  pecuniam, 
Qucerit  calendis  ponere. 
They  will  cultivate  the  Caisse  ^^//ji?,  under  the  sacred  auspices 
of  this  prelate,  with  much  more  profit  than  its  vineyards 
or  its  corn-fields.     They  will  employ  their  talents  according 
to  their  habits  and  their  interests.     They  will  not  follow  the 
plough  whilst  they  can  direct  treasuries,  and  govern  provinces. 
Your  legislators,  in  every  thing  new,  are  the  very  first  who 
have  founded  a  commonwealth  upon  gaming,  and  infused 
this  spirit  into  it  as  its  vital  breath.     The  great  object  in 
these   poHtics   is   to   metamorphose   France  from   a   great 
kingdom  into    one   great   play-table;    to    turn   its  inhabit- 
ants  into   a   nation   of  gamesters ;    to   make  speculations 
as  extensive  as  life ;  to  mix  it  with  all  its  concerns ;  and  to 
divert  the  whole  of  the  hopes  and  fears  of  the  people  from 
their  useful  channels,  into  the  impulses,  passions,  and  super- 
stitions of  those  who  live  on  chances.    They  loudly  proclaim 
their  opinion,  that  this  their  present  system  of  a  republic 
cannot  possibly  exist  without  this  kind  of  gaming  fund ;  and 
that  the  very  thread  of  its  life  is  spun  out  of  the  staple  of 
these  speculations.      The  old  gaming  in   funds  was   mis- 
chievous   enough    undoubtedly;    but   it   was    so    only   to 
individuals.     Even  when  it  had  its  greatest  extent,  in  the 
Mississippi  and  South  Sea,  it  affected  but  few,  comparatively ; 
where  it  extends  further,  as  in  lotteries,  the  spirit  has  but  a 
single  object.     But  where  the  law,  which  in  most  circum- 
stances forbids,  and  in  none  countenances  gaming,  is  itself 
debauched,  so  as  to  reverse  its  nature  and  policy,  and  ex- 
pressly to  force  the  subject  to  this   destructive  table,  by 
bringing  the  spirit  and  symbols  of  gaming  into  the  minutest 
matters,  and  engaging  every  body  in  it,  and  in  every  thing,  a 
more  dreadful  epidemic  distemper  of  that  kind  is  spread  than 


SPIRIT  OF   GAMING.  229 

yet  has  appeared  in  the  world.  With  you  a  man  can 
neither  earn  nor  buy  his  dinner,  without  a  speculation. 
What  he  receives  in  the  morning  will  not  have  the  same 
value  at  night.  What  he  is  compelled  to  take  as  pay  for  an 
old  debt,  will  not  be  received  as  the  same  when  he  comes  to 
pay  a  debt  contracted  by  himself;  nor  will  it  be  the  same 
when  by  prompt  payment  he  would  avoid  contracting  any 
debt  at  all.  Industry  must  wither  away.  CEconomy  must 
be  driven  from  your  country.  Careful  provision  will  have 
no  existence.  Who  will  labour  without  knowing  the  amount 
of  his  pay  ?  Who  will  study  to  encrease  what  none  can 
estimate  ?  who  will  accumulate,  when  he  does  not  know  the 
value  of  what  he  saves  ?  If  you  abstract  it  from  its  uses  in 
gaming,  to  accumulate  your  paper  wealth,  would  be  not  the 
providence  of  a  man,  but  the  distempered  instinct  of  a  jackdaw. 

The  truly  melancholy  part  of  the  policy  of  systematically 
making  a  nation  of  gamesters  is  this;  that  tho'  all  are 
forced  to  play,  few  can  understand  the  game  ;  and  fewer 
still  are  in  a  condition  to  avail  themselves  of  the  knowledge. 
The  many  must  be  the  dupes  of  the  few  who  conduct  the 
machine  of  these  speculations.  What  effect  it  must  have  on 
the  country-people  is  visible.  The  townsman  can  calculate 
from  day  to  day :  not  so  the  inhabitant  of  the  country. 
When  the  peasant  first  brings  his  corn  to  market,  the 
magistrate  in  the  town  obliges  him  to  take  the  assignat  at 
par;  when  he  goes  to  the  shop  with  this  Kioney,  he  finds  it 
seven  per  cent,  the  worse  for  crossing  the  way.  This 
market  he  will  not  readily  resort  to  again.  The  towns- 
people will  be  inflamed !  they  will  force  the  country-people 
to  bring  their  corn.  Resistance  will  begin,  and  the  murders 
of  Paris  and  St.  Dennis  may  be  renewed  through  all  France. 

What  signifies  the  empty  compliment  paid  to  the  country 
by  giving  it  perhaps  more  than  its  share  in  the  theory  of 
your    representation  ?      Where   have   you   placed   the  real 


330  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

power  over  monied  and  landed  circulation?  Where  have 
you  placed  the  means  of  raising  and  falling  the  value  of 
every  man's  freehold  ?  Those  whose  operations  can  take 
from,  or  add  ten  per  cent,  to,  the  possessions  of  every  man 
in  France,  must  be  the  masters  of  every  man  in  France. 
The  whole  of  the  power  obtained  by  this  revolution  will 
settle  in  the  towns  among  the  burghers,  and  the  monied 
directors  who  lead  them.  The  landed  gentlemen,  the  yeo- 
man, and  the  peasant  have,  none  of  them,  habits,  or  inclina- 
tions, or  experience,  which  can  lead  them  to  any  share  in 
this  the  sole  source  of  power  and  influence  now  left  in 
France.  The  very  nature  of  a  country  life,  the  very  nature 
of  landed  property,  in  all  the  occupations,  and  all  the 
pleasures  they  afford,  render  combination  and  arrangement 
(the  sole  way  of  procuring  and  exerting  influence)  in  a 
manner  impossible  amongst  country-people.  Combine  them 
by  all  the  art  you  can,  and  all  the  industry,  they  are  always 
dissolving  into  individuality.  Any  thing  in  the  nature  of 
incorporation  is  almost  impracticable  amongst  them.  Hope, 
fear,  alarm,  jealousy,  the  ephemerous  tale  that  does  its 
business  and  dies  in  a  day,  all  these  things,  which  are  the 
reins  and  spurs  by  which  leaders  check  or  urge  the  minds  of 
followers,  are  not  easily  employed,  or  hardly  at  all,  amongst 
scattered  people.  They  assemble,  they  arm,  they  act  with 
the  utmost  difficulty,  and  at  the  greatest  charge.  Their 
efforts,  if  ever  they  can  be  commenced,  cannot  be  sustained. 
They  cannot  proceed  systematically.  If  the  country  gentle- 
men attempt  an  influence  through  the  mere  income  of  their 
property,  what  is  it  to  that  of  those  who  have  ten  times  their 
income  to  sell,  and  who  can  ruin  their  property  by  bringing 
their  plunder  to  meet  it  at  market?  If  the  landed  man 
wishes  to  mortgage,  he  falls  the  value  of  his  land,  and  raises 
the  value  of  assignats.  He  augments  the  power  of  his 
enemy  by  Jhe  very  means  he  must  take  to  contend  with  him. 


OLIGARCHY  OF  MONEY-DEALERS.  23 1 

The  country  gentleman  therefore,  the  officer  by  sea  and 
land,  the  man  of  liberal  views  and  habits,  attached  to  no 
profession,  will  be  as  completely  excluded  from  the  govern- 
ment of  his  country  as  if  he  were  legislatively  proscribed. 
It  is  obvious,  that  in  the  towns,  all  the  things  which  conspire 
against  the  country  gentleman,  combine  in  favour  of  the 
money  manager  and  director.  In  towns  combination  is 
natural.  The  habits  of  burghers,  their  occupations,  their 
diversion,  their  business,  their  idleness,  continually  bring 
them  into  mutual  contact.  Their  virtues  and  their  vices  are 
sociable ;  they  are  always  in  garrison ;  and  they  come  em- 
bodied and  half  disciplined  into  the  hands  of  those  who 
mean  to  form  them  for  civil,  or  for  military  action. 

All  these  considerations  leave  no  doubt  on  my  mind,  that 
if  this  monster  of  a  constitution  can  continue,  France  will  be 
wholly  governed  by  the  agitators  in  corporations,  by  societies 
in  the  towns  formed  of  directors  of  assignats,  and  trustees 
for  the  sale  of  church  lands,  attornies,  agents,  money -jobbers, 
speculators,  and  adventurers,  composing  an  ignoble  oli- 
garchy founded  on  the  destruction  of  the  crown,  the  church, 
the  nobility,  and  the  people.  Here  end  all  the  deceitful 
dreams  and  visions  of  the  equality  and  rights  of  men.  In 
the  'Serbonian  bog  of  this  base  oligarchy  they  are  all  absorbed, 
sunk,  and  lost  for  ever. 

Though  human  eyes  cannot  trace  them,  one  would  be 
tempted  to  think  some  great  offences  in  France  must  cry  to 
heaven,  which  has  thought  fit  to  punish  it  with  a  subjection 
to  a  vile  and  inglorious  domination,  in  which  no  comfort  or 
compensation  is  to  be  found  in  any,  even  of  those  false 
splendours,  which,  playing  about  other  tyrannies,  prevent 
mankind  from  feeling  themselves  dishonoured  even  whilst 
they  are  oppressed.  I  must  confess  I  am  touched  with  a 
sorrow,  mixed  with  some  indignation,  at  the  conduct  of  a 
few  men,  once  of  great  rank,  and  still  of  great  character, 


233  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

who,  deluded  with  specious  names,  have  engaged  in  a 
business  too  deep  for  the  line  of  their  understanding  to 
fathom;  who  have  lent  their  fair  reputation,  and  the  au- 
thority of  their  high-sounding  names,  to  the  designs  of  men 
with  whom  they  could  not  be  acquainted ;  and  have  thereby 
made  their  very  virtues  operate  to  the  ruin  of  their  country. 

So  far  as  to  the  first  cementing  principle. 

The  second  material  of  cement  for  their  new  republic  is 
the  superiority  of  the  city  of  Paris;  and  this  I  admit  is 
strongly  connected  with  the  other  cementing  principle  of 
paper  circulation  and  confiscation.  It  is  in  this  part  of  the 
project  we  must  look  for  the  cause  of  the  destruction  of  all 
the  old  bounds  of  provinces  and  jurisdictions,  ecclesiastical 
and  secular,  and  the  dissolution  of  all  antient  combinations 
of  things,  as  well  as  the  formation  of  so  many  small  un- 
connected republics.  The  power  of  the  city  of  Paris  is 
evidently  one  great  spring  of  all  their  politics.  It  is  through 
the  power  of  Paris,  now  become  the  center  and  focus  of 
jobbing,  that  the  leaders  of  this  faction  direct,  or  rather 
command  the  whole  legislative  and  the  whole  executive 
government.  Every  thing  therefore  must  be  done  which 
can  confirm  the  authority  of  that  city  over  the  other  re- 
publics. Paris  is  compact ;  she  has  an  enormous  strength, 
wholly  disproportioned  to  the  force  of  any  of  the  square 
republics;  and  this  strength  is  collected  and  condensed 
within  a  narrow  compass.  Paris  has  a  natural  and  easy 
connexion  of  its  parts,  which  will  not  be  afi'ected  by  any 
scheme  of  a  geometrical  constitution,  nor  does  it  much 
signify  whether  its  proportion  of  representation  be  more  or 
less,  since  it  has  the  whole  draft  of  fishes  in  its  drag-net. 
The  other  divisions  of  the  kingdom  being  hackled  and  torn 
to  pieces,  and  separated  from  all  their  habitual  means,  and 
even  principles  of  union,  cannot,  for  some  time  at  least,  con- 
federate against  her.     Nothing  was  to  be  left  in  all  the  sub- 


SUPREMACY  OF  PARIS,  233 

ordinate  members,  but  weakness,  disconnection,  and  con- 
fusion. To  confirm  this  part  of  the  plan,  the  assembly  has 
lately  come  to  a  resolution,  that  no  two  of  their  republics 
shall  have  the  same  commander  in  chief. 

To  a  person  who  takes  a  view  of  the  whole,  the  strength 
of  Paris  thus  formed,  will  appear  a  system  of  general  weak- 
ness. It  is  boasted,  that  the  geometrical  policy  has  been 
adopted,  that  all  local  ideas  should  be  sunk,  and  that  the 
people  should  no  longer  be  Gascons,  Picards,  Bretons, 
Normans,  but  Frenchmen,  with  one  country,  one  heart,  and 
one  assembly.  But  instead  of  being  all  Frenchmen,  the 
greater  likelihood  is,  that  the  inhabitants  of  that  region  will 
shortly  have  no  country.  No  man  ever  was  attached  by  a 
sense  of  pride,  partiality,  or  real  affection,  to  a  description 
of  square  measurement.  He  never  will  glory  in  belonging 
to  the  Checquer,  No.  71,  or  to  any  other  badge-ticket.  We 
begin  our  public  affections  in  our  families.  No  cold  relation 
is  a  zealous  citizen.  We  pass  on  to  our  neighbourhoods, 
and  our  habitual  provincial  connections.  These  are  inns 
and  resting-places.  Such  divisions  of  our  country  as  have 
been  formed  by  habit,  and  not  by  a  sudden  jerk  of  authority, 
were  so  many  little  images  of  the  great  country  in  which  the 
heart  found  something  which  it  could  fill.  The  love  to  the 
whole  is  not  extinguished  by  this  subordinate  partiality. 
Perhaps  it  is  a  sort  of  elemental  training  to  those  higher  and 
more  large  regards,  by  which  alone  men  come  to  be  affected, 
as  with  their  own  concern,  in  the  prosperity  of  a  kingdom  so 
extensive  as  that  of  France.  In  that  general  territory  itself,  as 
in  the  old  name  of  provinces,  the  citizens  are  interested  from 
old  prejudices  and  unreasoned  habits,  and  not  on  account 
of  the  geometric  properties  of  its  figure.  The  power  and  pre- 
eminence of  Paris  does  certainly  press  down  and  hold  these 
republics  together,  as  long  as  it  lasts.  But,  for  the  reasons 
I  have  already  given  you,  I  think  it  cannot  last  very  long. 


234  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

Passing  from  the  civil  creating,  and  the  civil  cementing 
principles  of  this  constitution,  to  the  national  assembly, 
which  is  to  appear  and  act  as  sovereign,  we  see  a  body  in 
its  constitution  with  every  possible  power,  and  no  possible 
external  controul.  We  see  a  body  without  fundamental 
laws,  without  established  maxims,  without  respected  rules  of 
proceeding,  which  nothing  can  keep  firm  to  any  system 
whatsoever.  Their  idea  of  their  powers  is  always  taken  at 
the  utmost  stretch  of  legislative  competency,  and  their 
examples  for  common  cases,  from  the  exceptions  of  the  most 
urgent  necessity.  The  future  is  to  be  in  most  respects  like 
the  present  assembly ;  but,  by  the  mode  of  the  new  elections 
and  the  tendency  of  the  new  circulations,  it  will  be  purged 
of  the  small  degree  of  internal  controul  existing  in  a 
minority  chosen  originally  from  various  interests,  and  pre- 
serving something  of  their  spirit.  If  possible,  the  next 
assembly  must  be  worse  than  thfe  present.  The  present,  by 
destroying  and  altering  every  thing,  will  leave  to  their  suc- 
cessors apparently  nothing  popular  to  do.  They  will  be 
roused  by  emulation  and  example  to  enterprises  the  boldest 
and  the  most  absurd.  To  suppose  such  an  assembly 
sitting  in  perfect  quietude  is  ridiculous. 

Your  all-sufficient  legislators,  in  their  hurry  to  do  every 
thing  at  once,  have  forgot  one  thing  that  seems  essential, 
and  which,  I  believe,  never  has  been  before,  in  the  theory  or 
.  the  practice,  omitted  by  any  projector  of  a  republic.  They 
have  forgot  to  constitute  a  Senate,  or  something  of  that 
nature  and  character.  Never,  before  this  time,  was  heard  of 
a  body  politic  composed  of  one  legislative  and  active 
assembly,  and  its  executive  officers,  without  such  a  council ; 
without  something  to  which  foreign  states  might  connect 
themselves;  something  to  which,  in  the  ordinary  detail  of 
government,  the  people  could  look  up;  something  which 
might  give  a  bias  and  steadiness  and  preserve  something 


EXECUTIVE   POWER.  235 

like  consistency  in  the  proceedings  of  state.  Such  a  body 
kings  generally  have  as  a  council.  A  monarchy  may  exist 
without  it ;  but  it  seems  to  be  in  the  very  essence  of  a 
republican  government.  It  holds  a  sort  of  middle  place 
between  the  supreme  power  exercised  by  the  people,  or 
immediately  delegated  from  them,  and  the  mere  executive. 
Of  this  there  are  no  traces  in  your  constitution ;  and  in  pro- 
viding nothing  of  this  kind,  your  Solons  and  Numas  have, 
as  much  as  in  any  thing  else,  discovered  a  sovereign  in- 
capacity. 

Let  us  now  turn  our  eyes  to  what  they  have  done  towards 
the  formation  of  an  executive  power.     For  this  they  have 
chosen  a  degraded  king.     This  their  first  executive  officer  is 
to  be  a  machine,  without  any  sort  of  deliberative  discretion 
in  any  one  act  of  his  function.     At  best  he  is  but  a  channel 
to   convey  to   the  national   assembly  such  matter  as   may 
import  that  body  to  know.     If  he  had  been  made  the  ex- 
clusive channel,  the  power  would  not  have  been  without  its 
importance;  though  infinitely  perilous  to  those  who  would 
choose  to  exercise  it.     But  public  intelligence  and  statement 
of  facts  may  pass  to  the  assembly,  with  equal  authenticity, 
through  any  other  conveyance.     As  to  the  means,  therefore, 
of  giving  a  direction  to  measures  by  the  statement  of  an 
authorized  reporter,  this  office  of  intelligence  is  as  nothing. 
To  consider  the  French  scheme  of  an  executive  officer  in^^ 
*;  its  two  natural  divisions  of  civil  and  political — In  the  first  it  \ 
I  must  be  observed,  that,  according  to  the  new  constitution,  T 
.'  the  higher  parts  of  judicature,  in  either  of  its  lines,  are  not  '. 
:  in  the  king.     The  king  of  France  is  not  the  fountain  of  i 
'  justice.     The  judges,  neither  the  original  nor  the  appellate,  t* 
\  are  of  his  nomination.     He  neither  proposes  the  candidates,  *, 
\  nor  has  a  negative  on  the  choice.     He   is  not   even  the  *'j 
{  public  prosecutor.     He  serves  only  as  a  notary  to  authenti-  " 


236  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

cate  the  choice  made  of  the  judges  in  the  several  districts. 
By  his  officers  he  is  to  execute  their  sentence.  .  When  we 
look  into  the  true  nature  of  his  authority,  he  appears  to  be 
nothing  more  than  a  chief  of  bumbailiffs,  Serjeants  at  mace, 
catchpoles,  jailers,  and  hangmen.  It  is  impossible  to  place 
any  thing  called  royalty  in  a  more  degrading  point  of  view. 
A  thousand  times  better  it  had  been  for  the  dignity  of  this 
unhappy  prince,  that  he  had  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  the 
administration  of  justice,  deprived  as  he  is  of  all  that  is 
venerable,  and  all  that  is  consolatory  in  that  function,  with- 
out power  of  originating  any  process ;  without  a  power  of 
suspension,  mitigation,  or  pardon.  Every  thing  in  justice 
that  is  vile  and  odious  is  thrown  upon  him.  It  was  not  for 
nothing  that  the  assembly  has  been  at  such  pains  to  remove 
the  stigma  from  certain  offices,  when  they  were  resolved  to 
place  the  person  who  lately  had  been  their  king  in  a  situa- 
tion but  one  degree  above  the  executioner,  and  in  an  office 
nearly  of  the  same  quality.  It  is  not  in  nature,  that  situated 
as  the  king  of  the  French  now  is,  he  can  respect  himself,  or 
can  be  respected  by  others. 

View  this  new  executive  officer  on  the  side  of  his  political 
capacity,  as  he  acts  under  the  orders  of  the  national  as- 
sembly. To  execute  laws  is  a  royal  office;  to  execute 
orders  is  not  to  be  a  king.  However,  a  political  executive 
magistracy,  though  merely  such,  is  a  great  trust.  It  is  a 
trust  indeed  that  has  much  depending  upon  its  faithful  and 
diligent  performance,  both  in  the  person  presiding  in  it  and 
in  all  his  subordinates.  Means  of  performing  this  duty 
ought  to  be  given  by  regulation ;  and  dispositions  towards 
it  ought  to  be  infused  by  the  circumstances  attendant  on  the 
trust.  It  ought  to  be  environed  with  dignity,  authority,  and 
consideration,  and  it  ought  to  lead  to  glory.  The  office  of 
execution  is  an  office  of  exertion.  It  is  not  from  impotence 
we  are  to  expect  the  tasks  of  power.     What  sort  of  person 


DEGRADATION  OF   OFFICE   OF  KING.  237 

is  a  king  to  command  executory  service,  who  has  no  means 
whatsoever  to  reward  it  ?  Not  in  a  permanent  office ;  not 
in  a  grant  of  land ;  no,  not  in  a  pension  of  fifty  pounds  a 
year ;  not  in  the  vainest  and  most  trivial  title.  In  France 
the  king  is  no  more  the  fountain  of  honour  than  he  is  the 
fountain  of  justice.  All  rewards,  all  distinctions  are  in  other 
hands.  Those  who  serve  the  king  can  be  actuated  by  no 
natural  motive  but  fear ;  by  a  fear  of  every  thing  except 
their  master.  His  functions  of  internal  coercion  are  as 
odious,  as  those  which  he  exercises  in  the  department  of 
justice.  If  relief  is  to  be  given  to  any  municipality,  the 
assembly  gives  it.  If  troops  are  to  be  sent  to  reduce  them 
to  obedience  to  the  assembly,  the  king  is  to  execute  the 
order ;  and  upon  every  occasion  he  is  to  be  spattered  over 
with  the  blood  of  his  people.  He  has  no  negative ;  yet  his 
name  and  authority  is  used  to  enforce  every  harsh  decree. 
Nay,  he  must  concur  in  the  butchery  of  those  who  shall  attempt 
to  free  him  from  his  imprisonment,  or  shew  the  slightest 
attachment  to  his  person  or  to  his  antient  authority. 

Executive  magistracy  ought  to  be  constituted  in  such  a 
manner,  that  those  who  compose  it  should  be  disposed  to 
love  and  to  venerate  those  whom  they  are  bound  to  obey. 
A  purposed  neglect,  or,  what  is  worse,  a  literal  but  perverse 
and  malignant  obedience,  must  be  the  ruin  of  the  wisest 
counsels.  In  vain  will  the  law  attempt  to  anticipate  or  to 
follow  such  studied  neglects  and  fraudulent  attentions.  To 
make  men  act  zealously  is  not  in  the  competence  of  law. 
Kings,  even  such  as  are  truly  kings,  may  and  ought  to  bear 
the  freedom  of  subjects  that  are  obnoxious  to  them.  They 
may  too,  without  derogating  from  themselves,  bear  even  the 
authority  of  such  persons  if  it  promotes  their  service.  Louis 
the  Xlllth  mortally  hated  the  cardinal  de  Richlieu;  but  his 
support  of  that  minister  against  his  rivals  was  the  source  of 
all  the  glory  of  his  reign,  and  the  solid  foundation  of  his 


238  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

throne  itself.  Louis  the  XlVth,  when  come  to  the  throne, 
did  not  love  the  cardinal  Mazarin ;  but  for  his  interests  he 
preserved  him  in  power.  When  old,  he  detested  Louvois ; 
but  for  years,  whilst  he  faithfully  served  his  greatness,  he 
endured  his  person.  When  George  the  lid  took  Mr.  Pitt, 
who  certainly  was  not  agreeable  to  him,  into  his  councils,  he 
did  nothing  which  could  humble  a  wise  sovereign.  But 
these  ministers,  who  were  chosen  by  affairs,  not  by  affec- 
tions, acted  in  the  name  of,  and  in  trust  for,  kings ;  and  not 
as  their  avowed,  constitutional,  and  ostensible  masters, 
I  think  it  impossible  that  any  king,  when  he  has  re- 
covered his  first  terrors,  can  cordially  infuse  vivacity  and 
vigour  into  measures  which  he  knows  to  be  dictated  by 
those  who  he  must  be  persuaded  are  in  the  highest  degree  ill 
affected  to  his  person.  Will  any  ministers,  who  serve  such 
a  king  (or  whatever  he  may  be  called)  with  but  a  decent 
appearance  of  respect,  cordially  obey  the  orders  of  those 
whom  but  the  other  day  in  his  name  they  had  committed  to 
the  Bastile  ?  will  they  obey  the  orders  of  those  whom,  whilst 
they  were  exercising  despotic  justice  upon  them,  they  con- 
ceived they  were  treating  with  lenity;  and  for  whom,  in  a 
prison,  they  thought  they  had  provided  an  asylum.?  If  you 
expect  such  obedience,  amongst  your  other  innovations  and 
regenerations,  you  ought  to  make  a  revolution  in  nature,  and 
provide  a  new  constitution  for  the  human  mind.  Otherwise, 
your  supreme  government  cannot  harmonize  with  its  execu- 
tory system.  There  are  cases  in  which  we  cannot  take  up 
with  names  and  abstractions.  You  may  call  half  a  dozen 
leading  individuals,  whom  we  have  reason  to  fear  and  hate, 
the  nation.  It  makes  no  other  difference,  than  to  make  us 
fear  and  hate  them  the  more.  If  it  had  been  thought 
justifiable  and  expedient  to  make  such  a  revolution  by  such 
means,  and  through  such  persons,  as  you  have  made  yours, 
it  would  have   been  more   wise    to   have   completed    the 


THE  KING — NO  KING.  239 

business  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  of  October.  The  new  executive 
officer  would  then  owe  his  situation  to  those  who  are  his 
creators  as  well  as  his  masters ;  and  he  might  be  bound  in 
interest,  in  the  society  of  crime,  and  (if  in  crimes  there  could 
be  virtues)  in  gratitude,  to  serve  those  who  had  promoted 
him  to  a  place  of  great  lucre  and  great  sensual  indulgence ; 
and  of  something  more :  For  more  he  must  have  received 
from  those  who  certainly  would  not  have  limited  an  aggran- 
dized creature,  as  they  have  done  a  submitting  antagonist. 

A  king  circumstanced  as  the  present,  if  he  is  totally 
stupified  by  his  misfortunes,  so  as  to  think  it  not  the 
necessity,  but  the  premium  and  privilege  of  life,  to  eat  and 
sleep,  without  any  regard  to  glory,  never  can  be  fit  for  the 
office.  If  he  feels  as  men  commonly  feel,  he  must  be 
sensible,  that  an  office  so  circumstanced  is  one  in  which  he 
can  obtain  no  fame  or  reputation.  He  has  no  generous 
interest  that  can  excite  him  to  action.  At  best,  his  conduct 
will  be  passive  and  defensive.  To  inferior  people  such  an 
office  might  be  matter  of  honour.  But  to  be  raised  to  it, 
arid  to  descend  to  it,  are  different  things,  and  suggest 
different  sentiments.  Does  he  really  name  the  ministers .'' 
They  will  have  a  sympathy  with  him.  Are  they  forced  upon 
him  ?  The  whole  business  between  them  and  the  nominal 
king  will  be  mutual  counteraction.  In  all  other  countries, 
the  office  of  ministers  of  state  is  of  the  highest  dignity.  In 
France  it  is  full  of  peril  and  incapable  of  glory.  Rivals 
however  they  will  have  in  their  nothingness,  whilst  shallow 
ambition  exists  in  the  world,  or  the  desire  of  a  miserable 
salary  is  an  incentive  to  short-sighted  avarice.  Those  com- 
petitors of  the  ministers  are  enabled  by  your  constitution  to 
attack  them  in  their  vital  parts,  whilst  they  have  not  the 
means  of  repelling  their  charges  in  any  other  than  the 
degrading  character  of  culprits.  The  ministers  of  state  in 
France  are  the  only  persons  in  that  country  who  are  incap- 


240  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

able  of  a  share  in  the  national  councils.  What  ministers ! 
What  councils  !  What  a  nation  ! — But  they  are  responsible. 
It  is  a  poor  service  that  is  to  be  had  from  responsibility. 
The  elevation  of  mind,  to  be  derived  from  fear,  will  never 
make  a  nation  glorious.  Responsibility  prevents  crimes.  It 
makes  all  attempts  against  the  laws  dangerous.  But  for  a 
principle  of  active  and  zealous  service,  none  but  idiots  could 
think  of  it.  Is  the  conduct  of  a  war  to  be  trusted  to  a  man 
who  may  abhor  its  principle ;  who,  in  every  step  he  may 
take  to  render  it  successful,  confirms  the  power  of  those  by 
whom  he  is  oppressed  ?  Will  foreign  states  seriously  treat 
with  him  who  has  no  prerogative  of  peace  or  war ;  no,  not 
so  much  as  in  a  single  vote  by  himself  or  his  ministers,  or 
by  any  one  whom  he  can  possibly  influence?  A  state  of 
contempt  is  not  a  state  for  a  prince  :  better  get  rid  of  him  at 
once. 

I  know  it  will  be  said,  that  these  humours  in  the  court  and 
executive  government  will  continue  only  through  this  gene- 
ration ;  and  that  the  king  has  been  brought  to  declare  the 
dauphin  shall  be  educated  in  a  conformity  to  his  situation. 
If  he  is  made  to  conform  to  his  situation,  he  will  have  no 
education  at  all.  His  training  must  be  worse  even  than 
that  of  an  arbitrary  monarch.  If  he  reads, — whether  he 
reads  or  not,  some  good  or  evil  genius  will  tell  him  his 
ancestors  were  kings.  Thenceforward  his  object  must  be  to 
assert  himself,  and  to  avenge  his  parents.  This  you  will  say 
is  not  his  duty.  That  may  be ;  but  it  is  Nature ;  and  whilst 
you  pique  Nature  against  you,  you  do  unwisely  to  trust  to 
Duty.  In  this  futile  scheme  of  polity,  the  state  nurses  in  its 
bosom,  for  the  present,  a  source  of  weakness,  perplexity, 
counteraction,  inefficiency,  and  decay;  and  it  prepares  the 
means  of  its  final  ruin.  In  short,  I  see  nothing  in  the  exe- 
cutive force  (I  cannot  call  it  authority)  that  has  even  an 
appearance  of  vigour,  or  that  has  the  smallest  degree  of  just 


USE   OF   THE  ROYAL   OFFICE.  24 T 

correspondence  or  symmetry,  or  amicable  relation,  with  the 
supreme  power,  either  as  it  now  exists,  or  as  it  is  planned 
for  the  future  government. 

You  have  settled,  by  an  ceconomy  as  perverted  as  the 
policy,  two*  establishments  of  government;  one  real,  one 
fictitious.  Both  maintained  at  a  vast  expence;  but  the 
fictitious  at,  I  think,  the  greatest.  Such  a  machine  as  the 
latter  is  not  worth  the  grease  of  its  wheels.  The  expence  is 
exorbitant;  and  neither  the  shew  nor  the  use  deserve  the 
tenth  part  of  the  charge.  Oh !  but  I  don't  do  justice  to  the 
talents  of  the  legislators.  I  don't  allow,  as  I  ought  to  do,  for 
necessity.  Their  scheme  of  executive  force  was  not  their 
choice.  This  pageant  must  be  kept.  The  people  would 
not  consent  to  part  with  it.  Right;  I  understand  you. 
You  do,  in  spite  of  your  grand  theories,  to  which  you  would 
have  heaven  and  earth  to  bend,  you  do  know  how  to  con- 
form yourselves  to  the  nature  and  circumstances  of  things. 
But  when  you  were  obliged  to  conform  thus  far  to  circum- 
stances, you  ought  to  have  carried  your  submission  farther, 
and  to  have  made  what  you  were  obliged  to  take,  a  proper 
instrument,  and  useful  to  its  end.  That  was  in  your  power. 
For  instance,  among  many  others,  it  was  in  your  power  to 
leave  to  your  king  the  right  of  peace  and  war.  What !  to 
leave  to  the  executive  magistrate  the  most  dangerous  of  all 
prerogatives  ?  I  know  none  more  dangerous  ;  nor  any  one 
more  necessary  to  be  so  trusted.  I  do  not  say  that  this 
prerogative  ought  to  be  trusted  to  your  king,  unless  he 
enjoyed  other  auxiliary  trusts  along  with  it,  which  he  does 
not  now  hold.  But,  if  he  did  possess  them,  hazardous  as 
they  are  undoubtedly,  advantages  would  arise  from  such  a 
constitution,  more  than  compensating  the  risque.  There  is 
no  other  way  of  keeping  the  several  potentates  of  Europe 
from  intriguing  distinctly  and  personally  with  the  members 
*  In  reality  three,  to  reckon  the  provincial  republican  establishments, 

VOL.  II.  R 


243  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

of  your  assembly,  from  intermeddling  in  all  your  concerns, 
and  fomenting,  in  the  heart  of  your  country,  the  most  perni- 
cious of  all  factions ;  factions  in  the  interest  and  under  the 
direction  of  foreign  powers.  From  that  worst  of  evils,  thank 
God,  we  are  still  free.  Your  skill,  if  you  had  any,  would  be 
well  employed  to  find  out  indirect  correctives  and  controls 
upon  this  perilous  trust.  If  you  did  not  like  those  which  in 
England  we  have  chosen,  your  leaders  might  have  exerted 
their  abilities  in  contriving  better.  If  it  were  necessary  to 
exemplify  the  consequences  of  such  an  executive  govern- 
ment as  yours,  in  the  management  of  great  affairs,  I  should 
refer  you  to  the  late  reports  of  M.  de  Montmorin  to  the 
national  assembly,  and  all  the  other  proceedings  relative  to 
the  differences  between  Great  Britain  and  Spain.  It  would 
be  treating  your  understanding  with  disrespect  to  point  them 
out  to  you. 

I  hear  that  the  persons  who  are  called  ministers  have 
signified  an  intention  of  resigning  their  places.  I  am  rather 
astonished  that  they  have  not  resigned  long  since.  For  the 
universe  I  would  not  have  stood  in  the  situation  in  which 
they  have  been  for  this  last  twelvemonth.  They  wished  well, 
I  take  it  for  granted,  to  the  Revolution.  Let  this  fact  be  as 
it  may,  they  could  not,  placed  as  they  were  upon  an  emi- 
nence, though  an  eminence  of  humiliation,  but  be  the  first  to 
see  collectively,  and  to  feel  each  in  his  own  department,  the 
evils  which  have  been  produced  by  that  revolution.  In  every 
step  which  they  took,  or  forbore  to  take,  they  must  have  felt 
the  degraded  situation  of  their  country,  and  their  utter  in- 
capacity of  serving  it.  They  are  in  a  species  of  subordinate 
servitude,  in  which  no  men  before  them  were  ever  seen. 
Without  confidence  from  their  sovereign,  on  whom  they 
were  forced,  or  from  the  assembly  who  forced  them  upon 
him,  all  the  noble  functions  of  their  office  are  executed  by 
committees  of  the  assembly,  without  any  regard  whatsoever 


THE  JUDICATURE.  243 

to  their  personal,  or  their  official  authority.  They  are  to 
execute,  without  power ;  they  are  to  be  responsible,  without 
discretion;  they  are  to  deliberate,  without  choice.  In  their 
puzzled  situation,  under  two  sovereigns,  over  neither  of 
whom  they  have  any  influence,  they  must  act  in  such  a 
manner  as  (in  effect,  whatever  they  may  intend)  sometimes 
to  betray  the  one,  sometimes  the  other,  and  always  to  betray 
themselves.  Such  has  been  their  situation;  such  must  be 
the  situation  of  those  who  succeed  them.  I  have  much 
respect,  and  many  good  wishes,  for  Mr.  Necker.  I  am 
obliged  to  him  for  attentions.  I  thought  when  his  enemies 
had  driven  him  from  Versailles,  that  his  exile  was  a  subject 
of  most  serious  congratulation — sed  muUce  urbes  ei  pub- 
lica  vota  vicerunt.  He  is  now  sitting  on  the  ruins  of  the 
finances,  and  of  the  monarchy  of  France. 

A  great  deal  more  might  be  observed  on  the  strange  con- 
stitution of  the  executory  part  of  the  new  government ;  but 
fatigue  must  give  bounds  to  the  discussion  of  subjects,  which 
in  themselves  have  hardly  any  limits. 

As  little  genius  and  talent  am  I  able  to  perceive  in  the 
plan  of  judicature  formed  by  the  national  assembly.  Accord- 
ing to  their  invariable  course,  the  framers  of  your  constitu- 
tion have  begun  with  the  utter  abolition  of  the  parliaments. 
These  venerable  bodies,  like  the  rest  of  the  old  government, 
stood  in  need  of  reform,  even  though  there  should  be  no 
change  made  in  the  monarchy.  They  required  several  more 
alterations  to  adapt  them  to  the  system  of  a  free  constitution. 
But  they  had  particulars  in  their  constitution,  and  those  not 
a  few,  which  deserved  approbation  from  the  wise.  They 
possessed  one  fundamental  excellence;  they  were  indepen- 
dent. The  most  doubtful  circumstance  attendant  on  their 
office,  that  of  its  being  vendible,  contributed  however  to  this 
independency  of  character.     They   held  for  life.      Indeed 

R    2 


244  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

they  may  be  said  to  have  held  by  inheritance.  Appointed 
by  the  monarch,  they  were  considered  as  nearly  out  of  his 
power.  The  most  determined  exertions  of  that  authority 
against  them  only  shewed  their  radical  independence. 
They  composed  permanent  bodies  politic,  constituted  to 
resist  arbitrary  innovation ;  and  from  that  corporate  constitu- 
tion, and  from  most  of  their  forms,  they  were  well  calculated  to 
afford  both  certainty  and  stability  to  the  laws.  They  had 
been  a  safe  asylum  to  secure  these  laws  in  all  the  revolutions 
of  humour  and  opinion.  They  had  saved  that  sacred  deposit 
of  the  country  during  the  reigns  of  arbitrary  princes,  and  the 
struggles  of  arbitrary  factions.  They  kept  alive  the  memory 
and  record  of  the  constitution.  They  were  the  great 
security  to  private  property;  which  might  be  said  (when 
personal  liberty  had  no  existence)  to  be,  in  fact,  as  well 
guarded  in  France  as  in  any  other  country.  Whatever  is 
supreme  in  a  state,  ought  to  have,  as  much  as  possible,  its 
judicial  authority  so  constituted  as  not  only  to  depend  upon 
it,  but  in  some  sort  to  balance  it.  It  ought  to  give  a 
security  to  its  justice  against  its  power.  It  ought  to  make 
its  judicature,  as  it  were,  something  exterior  to  the  state. 

These  parliaments  had  furnished,  not  the  best  certainly 
but  some  considerable  corrective  to  the  excesses  and  vices 
of  the  monarchy.  Such  an  independent  judicature  was  ten 
times  more  necessary  when  a  democracy  became  the  abso- 
lute power  of  the  country.  In  that  constitution,  elective, 
temporary,  local  judges,  such  as  you  have  contrived, 
exercising  their  dependent  functions  in  a  narrow  society, 
must  be  the  worst  of  all  tribunals.  In  them  it  will  be  vain 
to  look  for  any  appearance  of  justice  towards  strangers, 
towards  the  obnoxious  rich,  towards  the  minority  of  routed 
parties,  towards  all  those  who  in  the  election  have  supported 
unsuccessful  candidates.  It  will  be  impossible  to  keep  the 
new   tribunals   clear   of  the   worst   spirit   of  faction.     All 


THE   OLD  PARLIAMENTS.  245 

contrivances  by  ballot,  we  know  experimentally,  to  be  vain 
and  childish  to  prevent  a  discovery  of  inclinations.  Where 
they  may  the  best  answer  the  purposes  of  concealment,  they 
answer  to  produce  suspicion,  and  this  is  a  still  more 
mischievous  cause  of  partiality. 

If  the  parliaments  had  been  preserved,  instead  of  being 
dissolved  at  so  ruinous  a  charge  to  the  nation,  they  might 
have  served  in  this  new  commonwealth,  perhaps  not  pre- 
cisely the  same  (I  do  not  mean  an  exact  parallel)  but  near 
the  same  purposes  as  the  court  and  senate  of  Areopagus  did 
in  Athens  ;  that  is,  as  one  of  the  balances  and  correctives  to 
the  evils  of  a  light  and  unjust  democracy.  Every  one  knows, 
that  this  tribunal  was  the  great  stay  of  that  state ;  every  one 
knows  with  what  care  it  was  upheld,  and  with  what  a  reli- 
gious awe  it  was  consecrated.  The  parliaments  were  not 
wholly  free  from  faction,  I  admit ;  but  this  evil  was  exterior 
and  accidental,  and  not  so  much  the  vice  of  their  constitu- 
tion itself,  as  it  must  be  in  your  new  contrivance  of  sexennial 
elective  judicatories.  Several  English  commend  the  abolition 
of  the  old  tribunals,  as  supposing  that  they  determined  every 
thing  by  bribery  and  corruption.  But  they  have  stood  the 
test  of  monarchic  and  republican  scrutiny.  The  court  was 
well  disposed  to  prove  corruption  on  those  bodies  when  they 
were  dissolved  in  177 1.  Those  who  have  again  dissolved 
them  would  have  done  the  same  if  they  could;  but  both 
inquisitions  having  failed,  I  conclude,  that  gross  pecuniary 
corruption  must  have  been  rather  rare  amongst  them. 

It  would  have  been  prudent,  along  with  the  parliaments, 
to  preserve  their  antient  power  of  registering,  and  of  remon- 
strating at  least,  upon  all  the  decrees  of  the  national  assembly, 
as  they  did  upon  those  which  passed  in  the  time  of  the 
monarchy.  It  would  be  a  means  of  squaring  the  occasional 
decrees  of  a  democracy  to  some  principles  of  general  juris- 
prudence.    The  vice  of  the  antient  democracies,  and  one 


245  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

cause  of  their  ruin,  was,  that  they  ruled,  as  you  do,  by 
occasional  decrees,  psephismata.  This  practice  soon  broke 
in  upon  the  tenour  and  consistency  of  the  laws ;  it  abated 
the  respect  of  the  people  towards  them;  and  totally  de- 
stroyed them  in  the  end. 

Your  vesting  the  power  of  remonstrance,  which,  in  the 
time  of  the  monarchy,  existed  in  the  parliament  of  Paris,  in 
your  principal  executive  officer,  whom,  in  spite  of  common 
sense,  you  persevere  in  calling  king,  is  the  height  of  ab- 
surdity. You  ought  never  to  suffer  remonstrance  from  him 
who  is  to  execute.  This  is  to  understand  neither  council 
nor  execution ;  neither  authority  nor  obedience.  The  person 
whom  you  call  king,  ought  not  to  have  this  power,  or  he 
ought  to  have  more. 

Your  present  arrangement  is  strictly  judicial.  Instead  of 
imitating  your  monarchy,  and  seating  your  judges  on  a 
bench  of  independence,  your  object  is  to  reduce  them  to  the 
most  blind  obedience.  As  you  have  changed  all  things,  you 
have  invented  new  principles  of  order.  You  first  appoint 
judges,  who,  I  suppose,  are  to  determine  according  to  law, 
and  then  you  let  them  know,  that,  at  some  time  or  other, 
you  intend  to  give  them  some  law  by  which  they  are  to 
determine.  Any  studies  which  they  have  made  (if  any  they 
have  made)  are  to  be  useless  to  them.  But  to  supply  these 
studies,  they  are  to  be  sworn  to  obey  all  the  rules,  orders, 
and  instructions,  which  from  time  to  time  they  are  to  receive 
from  the  national  assembly.  These  if  they  submit  to,  they 
leave  no  ground  of  law  to  the  subject.  They  become  com- 
plete, and  most  dangerous  instruments  in  the  hands  of  the 
governing  power,  which,  in  the  midst  of  a  cause,  or  on  the 
prospect  of  it,  may  wholly  change  the  rule  of  decision.  If 
these  orders  of  the  National  Assembly  come  to  be  contrary 
to  the  will  of  the  people  who  locally  choose  those  judges, 
such  confusion  must  happen  as  is  terrible  to  think  of.     For 


4: 


EXAMPLE   OF   THE   CHATELET.  247 

the  judges  owe  their  place  to  the  local  authority ;  and  the 
commands  they  are  sworn  to  obey  come  from  those  who 
have  no  share  in  their  appointment.  In  the  mean  time  they 
have  the  example  of  the  court  of  Chatelet  to  encourage  and 
guide  them  in  the  exercise  of  their  functions.  That  court  is 
to  try  criminals  sent  to  it  by  the  National  Assembly,  or 
brought  before  it  by  other  courses  of  delation.  They  sit 
under  a  guard,  to  save  their  own  lives.  They  know  not  by 
what  law  they  judge,  nor  under  what  authority  they  act,  nor 
by  what  tenure  they  hold.  It  is  thought  that  they  are 
sometimes  obliged  to  condemn  at  peril  of  their  lives.  This 
is  not  perhaps  certain,  nor  can  it  be  ascertained ;  but  when 
they  acquit,  we  know,  they  have  seen  the  persons  whom  they 
discharge,  with  perfect  impunity  to  the  actors,  hanged  at  the 
door  of  their  court. 

The  assembly  indeed  promises  that  they  will  form  a  body 
of  law,  which  shall  be  short,  simple,  clear,  and  so  forth. 
That  is,  by  their  short  laws,  they  will  leave  much  to  the 
discretion  of  the  judge;  whilst  they  have  exploded  the 
authority  of  all  the  learning  which  could  make  judicial  dis- 
cretion, (a  thing  perilous  at  best)  deserving  the  appellation 
of  a  sound  discretion. 

It  is  curious  to  observe,  that  the  administrative  bodies  are 
'carefully  exempted  from  the  jurisdiction  of  these  new 
tribunals.  That  is,  those  persons  are  exempted  from  the 
power  of  the  laws,  who  ought  to  be  the  ihost  entirely  sub- 
mitted to  them.  Those  who  execute  public  pecuniary  trusts, 
ought  of  all  men  to  be  the  most  strictly  held  to  their  duty. 
One  would  have  thought,  that  it  must  have  been  among 
your  earliest  cares,  if  you  did  not  mean  that  those  adminis- 
trative bodies  should  be  real  sovereign  independent  states,  to 
form  an  awful  tribunal,  like  your  late  parliaments,  or  like 
our  king's-bench,  where  all  corporate  officers  might  obtain 
protection  in  the  legal  exercise  of  their  functions,  and  would 


248  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

find  coercion  if  they  trespassed  against  their  legal  duty. 
But  the  cause  of  the  exemption  is  plain.  These  administra- 
tive bodies  are  the  great  instruments  of  the  present  leaders 
in  their  progress  through  democracy  to  oligarchy.  They 
must  therefore  be  put  above  the  law.  It  will  be  said,  that 
the  legal  tribunals  which  you  have  made  are  unfit  to  coerce 
them.  They  are  undoubtedly.  They  are  unfit  for  any 
rational  purpose.  It  will  be  said  too,  that  the  administrative 
bodies  will  be  accountable  to  the  general  assembly.  This,  I 
fear,  is  talking  without  much  consideration  of  the  nature  of 
that  assembly,  or  of  these  corporations.  However,  to  be 
subject  to  the  pleasure  of  that  assembly,  is  not  to  be  subject 
to  law,  either  for  protection  or  for  constraint. 

This  establishment  of  judges  as  yet  wants  something  to 
its  completion.  It  is  to  be  crowned  by  a  new  tribunal. 
This  is  to  be  a  grand  state  judicature ;  and  it  is  to  judge  of 
crimes  committed  against  the  nation,  that  is,  against  the 
power  of  the  assembly.  It  seems  as  if  they  had  something 
in  their  view  of  the  nature  of  the  high  court  of  justice 
erected  in  England  during  the  time  of  the  great  usurpation. 
As  they  have  not  yet  finished  this  part  of  the  scheme,  it  is 
impossible  to  form  a  direct  judgment  upon  it.  However,  if 
great  care  is  not  taken  to  form  it  in  a  spirit  very  different 
from  that  which  has  guided  them  in  their  proceedings 
relative  to  state  offences,  this  tribunal,  subservient  to  their 
inquisition,  fhe  comviiitee  of  research,  will  extinguish  the  last 
sparks  of  Hberty  in  France,  and  settle  the  most  dreadful  and 
arbitrary  tyranny  ever  known  in  any  nation.  If  they  wish 
to  give  to  this  tribunal  any  appearance  of  liberty  and  justice, 
they  must  not  evoke  from,  or  send  to  it,  the  causes  relative 
to  their  own  members,  at  their  pleasure.  They  must  also 
remove  the  seat  of  that  tribunal  out  of  the  republic  of  Paris  *. 

*  For  further  elucidations  upon  the  subject  of  all  these  judicatures, 
and  of  the  committee  of  research,  see  M.  de  Calonne's  work. 


THE  ARMF.  249 

Has  more  wisdom  been  displayed  in  the  constitution  of 
your  army  than  what  is  discoverable  in  your  plan  of  judica- 
ture? The  able  arrangement  of  this  part  is  the  more 
difficult,  and  requires  the  greater  skill  and  attention,  not  only 
as  a  great  concern  in  itself,  but  as  it  is  the  third  cementing 
principle  in  the  new  body  of  republics,  which  you  call  the 
French  nation.  Truly  it  is  not  easy  to  divine  what  that 
army  may  become  at  last.  You  have  voted  a  very  large  one, 
and  on  good  appointments,  at  least  fully  equal  -to  your 
apparent  means  of  payment.  But  what  is  the  principle  of 
its  discipline  ?  or  whom  is  it  to  obey .-'  You  have  got  the 
wolf  by  the  ears,  and  I  wish  you  joy  of  the  happy  position  in 
which  you  have  chosen  to  place  yourselves,  and  in  which 
you  are  well  circumstanced  for  a  free  deliberation,  relatively 
to  that  army,  or  to  any  thing  else. 

The  minister  and  secretary  of  state  for  the  war  depart- 
ment, is  M.  de  la  Tour  du  Pin.  This  gentleman,  like  his 
colleagues  in  administration,  is  a  most  zealous  assertor  of 
the  revolution,  and  a  sanguine  admirer  of  the  new  constitu- 
tion, which  originated  in  that  event.  His  statement  of  facts, 
relative  to  the  military  of  France,  is  important,  not  only  from 
his  official  and  personal  authority,  but  because  it  displays 
very  clearly  the  actual  condition  of  the  army  in  France,  and 
because  it  throws  light  on  the  principles  upon  which  the 
assembly  proceeds  in  the  administration  of  this  critical 
object.  It  may  enable  us  to  form  some  judgment  how  far 
it  may  be  expedient  in  this  country  to  imitate  the  martial 
policy  of  France. 

M.  de  la  Tour  du  Pin,  on  the  4th  of  last  June,  comes  to 
give  an  account  of  the  state  of  his  department,  as  it  exists 
under  the  auspices  of  the  national  assembly.  No  man 
knows  it  so  well ;  no  man  can  express  it  better.  Addressing 
himself  to  the  National  Assembly,  he  says,  '  His  Majesty  has 
/i^/j  day  sent  me  to  apprize  you  of  the  multiplied  disorders 


250  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

of  which  every  day  he  receives  the  most  distressing  intelli- 
gence. The  army  (le  corps  militaire)  threatens  to  fall  into 
the  most  turbulent  anarchy.  Entire  regiments  have  dared 
to  violate  at  once  the  respect  due  to  the  laws,  to  the  King, 
to  the  order  established  by  your  decrees,  and  to  the  oaths 
which  they  have  taken  with  the  most  awful  solemnity.  Com- 
pelled by  my  duty  to  give  you  information  of  these  excesses, 
my  heart  bleeds  when  I  consider  who  they  are  that  have 
committed  them.  Those,  against  whom  it  is  not  in  my 
power  to  withhold  the  most  grievous  complaints,  are  a  part 
of  that  very  soldiery  which  to  this  day  have  been  so  full  of 
honour  and  loyalty,  and  with  whom,  for  fifty  years,  I  have 
lived  the  comrade  and  the  friend. 

'  What  incomprehensible  spirit  of  delirium  and  delusion 
has  all  at  once  led  them  astray  ?  Whilst  you  are  indefatigable 
in  establishing  uniformity  in  the  empire,  and  moulding  the 
whole  into  one  coherent  and  consistent  body;  whilst  the 
French  are  taught  by  you,  at  once  the  respect  which  the 
laws  ■  owe  to  the  rights  of  man,  and  that  which  the  citizens 
owe  to  the  laws,  the  administration  of  the  army  presents 
nothing  but  disturbance  and  confusion.  I  see  in  more  than 
one  corps  the  bonds  of  discipline  relaxed  or  broken;  the 
most  unheard-of  pretensions  avowed  directly  and  without 
any  disguise;  the  ordinances  without  force;  the  chiefs 
without  authority ;  the  military  chest  and  the  colours  carried 
off;  the  authority  of  the  King  himself  \risum  teneaii's] 
proudly  defied;  the  officers  despised,  degraded,  threatened, 
driven  away,  and  some  of  them  prisoners  in  the  midst  of 
their  corps,  dragging  on  a  precarious  life  in  the  bosom  of 
disgust  and  humiliation.  To  fill  up  the  measure  of  all  these 
horrors,  the  commandants  of  places  have  had  their  throats 
cut,  under  the  eyes,  and  almost  in  the  arms,  of  their  own 
soldiers. 

*  These  evils  are  great;  but  they  are  not  the  worst  conse- 


OPINION  OF   THE  MINISTER   OF    WAR.  25 1 

quences  which  may  be  produced  by  such  military  insurrec- 
tions. Sooner  or  later  they  may  menace  the  nation  itself. 
TAe  nalure  of  things  requires,  that  the  army  should  never  act 
but  as  an  instrument.  The  moment  that,  erecting  itself  into 
a  dehberative  body,  it  shall  act  according  to  its  own  resolu- 
tions, the  government,  be  it  what  it  may,  will  immediately  de- 
generate into  a  military  democracy ;  a  species  of  political 
monster,  which  has  always  ended  by  devouring  those  who 
have  produced  it. 

'  After  all  this,  who  must  not  be  alarmed  at  the  irregular 
consultations,  and  turbulent  committees,  formed  in  some 
regiments  by  the  common  soldiers  and  non-commissioned 
officers,  without  the  knowledge,  or  even  in  contempt  of  the 
authority  of  their  superiors ;  although  the  presence  and  con- 
currence of  those  superiors  could  give  no  authority  to  such 
monstrous  democratic  assemblies  [comices].' 

It  is  not  necessary  to  add  much  to  this  finished  picture : 
finished  as  far  as  its  canvas  admits;  but,  as  I  apprehend, 
not  taking  in  the  whole  of  the  nature  and  complexity  of  the 
disorders  of  this  military  democracy,  which,  the  minister  at 
war  truly  and  wisely  observes,  wherever  it  exists,  must  be 
the  true  constitution  of  the  state,  by  whatever  formal  ap- 
pellation it  may  pass.  For,  though  he  informs  the  assembly, 
that  the  more  considerable  part  of  the  army  have  not  cast 
off"  their  obedience,  but  are  still  attached  to  their  duty,  yet 
those  travellers  who  have  seen  the  corps  whose  conduct  is 
the  best,  rather  observe  in  them  the  absence  of  mutiny  than 
the  existence  of  discipline. 

I  cannot  help  pausing  here  for  a  moment,  to  reflect  upon 
the  expressions  of  surprise  which  this  Minister  has  let  fall, 
relative  to  the  excesses  he  relates.  To  him  the  departure 
of  the  troops  from  their  antient  principles  of  loyalty  and 
honour  seems  quite  inconceivable.  Surely  those  to  whom 
he  addresses  himself  know  the  causes  of  it  but  too  well. 


252  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

They  know  the  doctrines  which  they  have  preached,  the 
decrees  which  they  have  passed,  the  practices  which  they 
have  countenanced.  The  soldiers  remember  the  6th  of  Oc- 
tober. They  recollect  the  French  guards.  They  have  not 
forgot  the  taking  of  the  King's  castles  in  Paris,  and  at  Mar- 
seilles. That  the  governors  in  both  places,  were  murdered 
with  impunity,  is  a  fact  that  has  not  passed  out  of  their 
minds.  They  do  not  abandon  the  principles,  laid  down  so 
ostentatiously  and  laboriously,  of  the  equality  of  men.  They 
cannot  shut  their  eyes  to  the  degradation  of  the  whole  no- 
blesse of  France ;  and  the  suppression  of  the  very  idea  of  a 
gentleman.  The  total  abolition  of  titles  and  distinctions  is 
not  lost  upon  them.  But  Mr.  du  Pin  is  astonished  at  their 
disloyalty,  when  the  doctors  of  the  assembly  have  taught 
them  at  the  same  time  the  respect  due  to  laws.  It  is  easy 
to  judge  which  of  the  two  sorts  of  lessons  men  with  arms 
in  their  hands  are  likely  to  learn.  As  to  the  authority  of 
the  King,  we  may  collect  from  the  minister  himself  (if  any 
argument  on  that  head  were  not  quite  superfluous)  that  it  is 
not  of  more  consideration  with  these  troops,  than  it  is  with 
every  body  else.  '  The  King,'  says  he,  '  has  over  and  over 
again  repeated  his  orders  to  put  a  stop  to  these  excesses : 
but,  in  so  terrible  a  crisis,  j'^wr  [the  assembly's]  concurrence 
is  become  indispensably  necessary  to  prevent  the  evils  which 
menace  the  state.  Fou  unite  to  the  force  of  the  legislative 
power,  ihat  0/ opinion  still  more  important.'  To  be  sure  the 
army  can  have  no  opinion  of  the  power  or  authority  of  the 
king.  Perhaps  the  soldier  has  by  this  time  learned,  that  the 
assembly  itself  does  not  enjoy  a  much  greater  degree  of 
liberty  than  that  royal  figure. 

It  is  now  to  be  seen  what  has  been  proposed  in  this 
exigency,  one  of  the  greatest  that  can  happen  in  a  state. 
The  Minister  requests  the  assembly  to  array  itself  in  all  its 
terrors,  and  to  call  forth  all  its  majesty.     He  desires  that  the 


ADDITIONAL    OATHS.       •  253 

grave  and  severe  principles  announced  by  them  may  give 
yigour  to  the  King's  proclamation.  After  this  we  should 
have  looked  for  courts  civil  and  martial ;  breaking  of  some 
corps,  decimating  others,  and  all  the  terrible  means  which 
necessity  has  employed  in  such  cases  to  arrest  the  progress 
of  the  most  terrible  of  all  evils  ;  particularly,  one  might  ex- 
pect, that  a  serious  inquiry  would  be  made  into  the  murder 
of  commandants  in  the  view  of  their  soldiers.  Not  one 
word  of  all  this,  or  of  any  thing  like  it.  After  they  had 
been  told  that  the  soldiery  trampled  upon  the  decrees  of  the 
assembly  promulgated  by  the  King,  the  assembly  pass  new 
decrees;  and  they  authorise  the  King  to  make  new  pro- 
clamations. After  the  Secretary  at  War  had  stated  that  the 
regiments  had  paid  no  regard  to  oaths  pretis  avec  la  plus  im- 
posante  solemm'ie—i\\Qy  •^xoYio'S.e — what?  More  oaths.  They 
renew  decrees  and  proclamations  as  they  experience  their 
insufficiency,  and  they  multiply  oaths  in  proportion  as  they 
weaken,  in  the  minds  of  men,  the  sanctions  of  religion.  I 
hope  that  handy  abridgments  of  the  excellent  sermons  of 
Voltaire,  d'Alembert,  Diderot,  and  Helvetius,  on  the  Immor- 
tality of  the  Soul,  on  a  particular  superintending  Providence, 
and  on  a  Future  State  of  Rewards  and  Punishments,  are 
sent  down  to  the  soldiers  along  with  their  civic  oaths.  Of 
this  I  have  no  doubt ;  as  I  understand,  that  a  certain  de- 
scription of  reading  makes  no  inconsiderable  part  of  their 
military  exercises,  and  that  they  are  full  as  well  supplied  with 
the  ammunition  of  pamphlets  as  of  cartridges. 

To  prevent  the  mischiefs  arising  from  conspiracies,  irre- 
gul^  consultations,  seditious  committees,  and  monstrous 
democratic  assemblies  ['comitia,'  'comices']  of  the  soldiers, 
and  all  the  disorders  arising  from  idleness,  luxury,  dissipa- 
tion, and  insubordination,  I  believe  the  most  astonishing 
means  have  been  used,  that  ever  occurred  to  men,  even  in 
all  the  inventions  of  this  prolific  age.     It  is  no  less  than 


254  'REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

this : — The  King  has  promulgated  in  circular  letters  to  all 
the  regiments  his  direct  authority  and  encouragement,  thaf 
the  several  corps  should  join  themselves  with  the  clubs  and 
confederations  in  the  several  municipalities,  and  mix  with 
them  in  their  feasts  and  civic  entertainments  1  This  jolly  dis- 
cipline, it  seems,  is  to  soften  the  ferocity  of  their  minds ;  to 
reconcile  them  to  their  bottle  companions  of  other  descrip- 
tions ;  and  to  merge  particular  conspiracies  in  more  general 
associations  *.  That  this  remedy  would  be  pleasing  to  the 
soldiers,  as  they  are  described  by  Mr.  de  la  Tour  du  Pin,  I 
can  readily  believe :  and  that,  however  mutinous  otherwise, 
they  will  dutifully  submit  themselves  to  /^ese  royal  proclama- 
tions. But  I  should  question  whether  all  this  civic  swearing, 
clubbing,  and  feasting,  would  dispose  them  more  than  at 
present  they  are  disposed,  to  an  obedience  to  their  officers ; 
or  teach  them  better  to  submit  to  the  austere  rules  of  military 
discipline.  It  will  make  them  admirable  citizens  after  the 
French  mode,  but  not  quite  so  good  soldiers  after  any  mode. 
A  doubt  might  well  arise,  whether  the  conversations  at  these 
good  tables,  would  fit  them  a  great  deal  the  better  for  the 
character  of  mere  instruments,  which  this  veteran  officer  and 
statesman  justly  observes,  the  nature  of  things  always  re- 
quires an  army  to  be. 

Concerning  the  likelihood  of  this  improvement  in  disci- 
pline, by  the  free  conversation  of  the  soldiers  with  the  muni- 
cipal festive  societies,  which  is  thus  officially  encouraged  by 
royal  authority  and  sanction,  we  may  judge  by  the  state  of 

the  municipalities  themselves,  furnished  to  us  by  the  war 

• 
*  Comme  sa  Majeste  y  a  reconnu,  non  une  systeme  d'associations  par- 
ticulieres,  mais  une  reunion  de  volontes  de  tous  les  Franfois  pour  la 
liberte  et  la  prospeiite  communes,  ainsi  pour  le  maintien  de  I'ordre 
publique ;  il  a  pense  qu'il  convenoit  que  chaque  regiment  prit  part  a 
ces  fetes  civiques  pour  multiplier  les  rapports,  et  reserrer  les  liens 
d'union  entre  les  citoyens  et  les  troupes. — Lest  I  should  not  be  credited, 
I  insert  the  words,  authorising  the  troops  to  feast  with  the  popular 
confederacies. 


*  FRA  TERNIZA  TION.'  255 

minister  in  this  very  speech.  He  conceives  good  hopes  of 
the  success  of  his  endeavours  towards  restoring  ordery^r  the 
present  from  the  good  disposition  of  certain  regiments ;  but  he 
finds  something  cloudy  with  regard  to  the  future.  As  to  pre- 
venting the  return  of  confusion  '  for  this,  the  administration 
(says  he)  cannot  be  answerable  to  you,  as  long  as  they  see 
the  municipalities  arrogate  to  themselves  an  authority  over 
the  troops,  which  your  institutions  have  reserved  wholly  to 
the  monarch.  You  have  fixed  the  limits  of  the  military  au- 
thority and  the  municipal  authority.  You  have  bounded  the 
action,  which  you  have  permitted  to  the  latter  over  the  for- 
mer, to  the  right  of  requisition ;  but  never  did  the  letter  or 
the  spirit  of  your  decrees  authorise  the  commons  in  these 
municipahties  to  break  the  officers,  to  try  them,  to  give 
orders  to  the  soldiers,  to  drive  them  from  the  posts  com- 
mitted to  their  guard,  to  stop  them  in  their  marches  ordered 
by  the  King,  or,  in  a  word,  to  enslave  the  troops  to  the 
caprice  of  each  of  the  cities  or  even  market  towns  through 
which  they  are  to  pass.' 

Such  is  the  character  and  disposition  of  the  municipal 
society  which  is  to  reclaim  the  soldiery,  to  bring  them  back 
to  the  true  principles  of  military  subordination,  and  to  render 
them  machines  in  the  hands  of  the  supreme  power  of  the 
country!  Such  are  the  distempers  of  the  French  troops! 
Such  is  their  cure  !  As  the  army  is,  so  is  the  navy.  The 
municipalities  supersede  the  orders  of  the  assembly,  and  the 
seamen  in  their  turn  supersede  the  orders  of  the  municipali- 
ties. From  my  heart  I  pity  the  condition  of  a  respectable 
servant  of  the  public,  like  this  war  minister,  obliged  in  his 
old  age  to  pledge  the  assembly  in  their  civic  cups,  and  to 
enter  with  a  hoary  head  into  all  the  fantastick  vagaries  of 
these  juvenile  politicians.  Such  schemes  are  not  like  propo- 
sitions coming  from  a  man  of  fifty  years  wear  and  tear 
amongst  mankind.     They  seem  rather  such  as  ought  to  be 


256  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

expected  from  those  grand  compounders  in  politics,  who 
shorten  the  road  to  their  degrees  in  the  state ;  and  have  a 
certain  inward  fanatical  assurance  and  illumination  upon  all 
subjects ;  upon  the  credit  of  which  one  of  their  doctors  has 
thought  fit,  with  great  applause,  and  greater  success,  to 
caution  the  assembly  not  to  attend  to  old  men,  or  to  any 
persons  who  valued  themselves  upon  their  experience.  I 
suppose  all  the  ministers  of  state  must  qualify,  and  take  this 
test;  wholly  abjuring  the  errors  and  heresies  of  experience 
and  observation.  Every  man  has  his  own  relish.  But  I 
think,  if  I  could  not  attain  to  the  wisdom,  I  would  at  least 
preserve  something  of  the  stiff  and  peremptory  dignity  of 
age.  These  gentlemen  deal  in  regeneration;  but  at  any 
price  I  should  hardly  yield  my  rigid  fibres  to  be  regenerated 
by  them;  nor  begin,  in  my  grand  climacteric,  to  squall  in 
their  new  accents,  or  to  stammer,  in  my  second  cradle,  the 
elemental  sounds  of  their  barbarous  metaphysics  *.  St  isii 
viihi  largiaiitur  ui  repuerascam,  el  in  eoruvi  cunis  vagiam,  valde 
recusem  ! 

The  imbecility  of  any  part  of  the  puerile  and  pedantic 
system,  which  they  call  a  constitution,  cannot  be  laid  open 
without  discovering  the  utter  insufficiency  and  mischief  of 
every  other  part  with  which  it  comes  in  contact,  or  that 
bears  any  the  remotest  relation  to  it.  You  cannot  propose 
a  remedy  for  the  incompetence  of  the  crown,  without  dis- 
playing the  debility  of  the  assembly.  You  cannot  deliberate 
on  the  confusion  of  the  army  of  the  state,  without  disclosing 
the  worse  disorders  of  the  armed  municipalities.  The  mili- 
tary lays  open  the  civil,  and  the  civil  betrays  the  military 
anarchy.  I  wish  every  body  carefully  to  peruse  the  eloquent 
speech  (such  it  is)  of  INIons.  de  la  Tour  du  Pin.  He  attri- 
butes the  salvation  of  the  municipalities  to  the  good  be- 

*  This  war  minister  has  since  quitted  the  school  and  resigned  his 
office. 


ITS  EFFECT.  257 

haviour  of  some  of  the  troops.  These  troops  are  to  preserve 
the  well-disposed  part  of  those  municipalities,  which  is  con- 
fessed to  be  the  weakest,  from  the  pillage  of  the  worst 
disposed,  which  is  the  strongest.  But  the  municipalities 
affect  a  sovereignty,  and  will  command  those  troops  which 
are  necessary  for  their  protection.  Indeed,  they  must  com- 
mand them,  or  court  them.  The  municipalities,  by  the 
necessity  of  their  situation,  and  by  the  republican  powers 
they  have  obtained,  must,  with  relation  to  the  military,  be 
the  masters,  or  the  servants,  or  the  confederates,  or  eaph 
successively;  or  they  must  make  a  jumble  of  all  together, 
according  to  circumstances.  What  government  is  there  to 
coerce  the  army  but  the  municipality,  or  the  municipality  but 
the  army  ?  To  preserve  concord  where  authority  is  extin- 
guished, at  the  hazard  of  all  consequences,  the  assembly 
attempts  to  cure  the  distempers  by  the  distempers  them- 
selves ;  and  they  hope  to  preserve  themselves  from  a  purely 
military  democracy,  by  giving  it  a  debauched  interest  in 
the  municipal. 

If  the  soldiers  once  come  to  mix  for  any  time  in  the  muni- 
cipal clubs,  cabals,  and  confederacies,  an  elective  attraction 
will  draw  them  to  the  lowest  and  most  desperate  part.  With 
them  will  be  their  habits,  affections,  and  sympathies.  The 
military  conspiracies,  which  are  to  be  remedied  by  civic  con- 
federacies; the  rebellious  municipalities,  which  are  to  be 
rendered  obedient  by  furnishing  them  with  the  means  of 
seducing  the  very  armies  of  fhe  state  that  are  to  keep  them 
in  order ;  all  these  chimeras  of  a  monstrous  and  portentous 
policy,  must  aggravate  the  confusions  from  which  they  have 
arisen.  There  must  be  blood.  The  want  of  common  judg- 
ment manifested  in  the  construction  of  all  their  descriptions 
of  forces,  and  in  all  their  kinds  of  civil  and  judicial  authori- 
ties, will  make  it  flow.  Disorders  may  be  quieted  in  one 
time   and  in  one  part.     They  will  break  out   in   others; 

VOL.  u.  s 


258  REVOLUTION   IN  FRANCE. 

because  the  evil  is  radical  and  intrinsic.  All  these  schemes 
of  mixing  mutinous  soldiers  with  seditious  citizens,  must 
weaken  still  more  and  more  the  military  connection  of 
soldiers  with  their  officers,  as  well  as  add  military  and  mu- 
tinous audacity  to  turbulent  artificers  and  peasants.  To 
secure  a  real  army,  the  officer  should  be  first  and  last  in  the 
eye  of  the  soldier ;  first  and  last  in  his  attention,  observance, 
and  esteem.  Officers  it  seems  there  are  to  be,  whose  chief 
qualification  must  be  temper  and  patience.  They  are  to 
manage  their  troops  by  electioneering  arts.  They  must 
bear  themselves  as  candidates  not  as  commanders.  But  as 
by  such  means  power  may  be  occasionally  in  their  hands, 
the  authority  by  which  they  are  to  be  nominated  becomes  of 
high  importance. 

What  you  may  do  finally,  does  not  appear ;  nor  is  it  of 
much  moment,  whilst  the  strange  and  contradictory  relation 
between  your  army  and  all  the  parts  of  your  republic,  as  well 
as  the  puzzled  relation  of  those  parts  to  each  other  and  to 
the  whole,  remain  as  they  are.  You  seem  to  have  given  the 
provisional  nomination  of  the  officers,  in  the  first  instance, 
to  the  king,  with  a  reserve  of  approbation  by  the  National 
Assembly.  Men  who  have  an  interest  to  pursue  are  ex- 
tremely sagacious  in  discovering  the  true  seat  of  power. 
They  must  soon  perceive  that  those  who  can  negative  in- 
definitely, in  reality  appoint.  The  officers  must  therefore 
look  to  their  intrigues  in  that  assembly,  as  the  sole  certain 
road  to  promotion.  Still,  however,  by  your  new  constitu- 
tion they  must  begin  their  solicitation  at  court.  This  double 
negotiation  for  military  rank  seems  to  me  a  contrivance  as 
well  adapted,  as  if  it  were  studied  for  no  other  end,  to  pro- 
mote faction  in  the  assembly  itself,  relative  to  this  vast  mili- 
tary patronage;  and  then  to  poison  the  corps  of  officers 
with  factions  of  a  nature  still  more  dangerous  to  the  safety  of 
govermnent,  upon  any  bCttom  on  which  it  can  be  placed, 


PROBABLE   FUTURE   OF   THE  ARMV.  259 

and  destructive  in  the  end  to  the  efficiency  of  the  army  itself. 
Those  officers,  who  lose  the  promotions  intended  for  them 
by  the  crown,  must  become  of  a  faction  opposite  to  that  of 
the  assembly  which  has  rejected  their  claims,  and  must 
nourish  discontents  in  the  heart  of  the  army  against  the 
ruling  powers.  Those  officers,  on  the  other  hand,  who,  by 
carrying  their  point  through  an  interest  in  the  assembly,  feel 
themselves  to  be  at  best  only  second  in  the  good- will  of  the 
crown,  though  first  in  that  of  the  assembly,  must  slight  an 
authority  which  would  not  advance,  and  could  not  retard 
their  promotion.  If  to  avoid  these  evils  you  will  have  no 
other  rule  for  command  or  promotion  than  seniority,  you 
will  have  an  army  of  formahty;  at  the  same  time  it  will 
become  more  independent,  and  more  of  a  military  republic. 
Not  they  but  the  king  is  the  machine.  A  king  is  not  to  be 
deposed  by  halves.  If  he  is  not  every  thing  in  the  com- 
mand of  an  army,  he  is  nothing.  What  is  the  effect  of  a 
power  placed  nominally  at  the  head  of  the  army,  who  to  ihat 
army  is  no  object  of  gratitude,  or  of  fear  ?  Such  a  cypher  is 
not  fit  for  the  administration  of  an  object  of  all  things  the 
most  delicate,  the  supreme  command  of  military  men.  They 
must  be  constrained  (and  their  inclinations  lead  them  to  what 
their  necessities  require)  by  a  real,  vigorous,  effective,  de- 
cided, personal  authority.  The  authority  of  the  assembly 
itself  suffers  by  passing  through  such  a  debihtating  channel 
as  they  have  chosen.  The  army  will  not  long  look  to  an 
assembly  acting  through  the  organ  of  false  shew,  and  palp- 
able imposition.  They  will  not  seriously  yield  obedience  to 
a  prisoner.  They  will  either  despise  a  pageant,  or  they  will 
pity  a  captive  king.  This  relation  of  your  army  to  the  crown 
will,  if  I  am  not  greatly  mistaken,  become  a  serious  dUemma 
in  your  politics. 

It  is  besides  to  be  considered,  whether  an  assembly  like 
yours,  even  supposing  that  it  was  in  possession  of  another 

5  2 


26o  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

sort  of  organ  through  which  its  orders  were  to  pass,  is  fit  for 
promoting  the  obedience  and  discipline  of  an  army.  It  is 
known,  that  armies  have  hitherto  yielded  a  very  precarious 
and  uncertain  obedience  to  any  senate,  or  popular  authority; 
and  they  will  least  of  all  yield  it  to  an  assembly  which  is  to 
have  only  a  continuance  of  two  years.  The  oflBcers  must 
totally  lose  the  characteristic  disposition  of  military  men,  if 
they  see  with  perfect  submission  and  due  admiration,  the 
dominion  of  pleaders ;  especially  when  they  find,  that  they 
have  a  new  court  to  pay  to  an  endless  succession  of  those 
pleaders,  whose  military  policy,  and  the  genius  of  whose 
command  (if  they  should  have  any)  must  be  as  uncertain  as 
their  duration  is  transient^  In  the  weakness  of  one  kind  of 
authority,  and  in  the  fluctuation  of  all,  the  officers  of  an 
army  will  remain  for  some  time  mutinous  and  full  of  faction, 
until  some  popular  general,  who  understands  the  art  of 
conciliating  the  soldiery,  and  who  possesses  the  true  spirit  of 
command  shall  draw  the  eyes  of  all  men  upon  himself. 
Armies  will  obey  him  on  his  personal  account.  There  is  no 
other  way  of  securing  military  obedience  in  this  state  of 
things.  But  the  moment  in  which  that  event  shall  happen, 
the  person  who  really  commands  the  army  is  your  master ; 
the  master  (that  is  little)  of  your  king,  the  master  of  your 
assembly,  the  master  of  your  whole  republic. 

How  came  the  assembly  by  their  present  power  over  the 
army  ?  Chiefly,  to  be  sure,  by  debauching  the  soldiers  from 
their  officers.  They  have  begun  by  a  most  terrible  operation. 
They  have  touched  the  central  point,  about  which  the  par- 
ticles that  compose  armies  are  at  repose.  They  have  de- 
stroyed the  principle  of  obedience  in  the  great  essential  critical 
link  between  the  officer  and  the  soldier,  just  where  the  chain 
of  military  subordination  commences,  and  on  which  the 
whole  of  that  system  depends.  The  soldier  is  told,  he  is  a 
citizen,  and  has  the  rights  of  man  and  citizen.     The  right  of 


THE  ARMY   WILL   CHOOSE  ITS   OWN  HEAD.      261 

a  man,  he  is  told,  is  to  be  his  own  governor,  and  to  be  ruled 
only  by  those  to  whom  he  delegates  that  self-government. 
It  is  very  natural  he  should  think,  that  he  ought  most  of  all 
to  have  his  choice  where  he  is  to  yield  the  greatest  degree  of 
obedience.  He  will  therefore,  in  all  probability,  systemati- 
cally do,  what  he  does  at  present  occasionally ;  that  is,  he 
will  exercise  at  least  a  negative  in  the  choice  of  his  officers. 
At  present  the  officers  are  known  at  best  to  be  only  permis- 
sive, and  on  their  good  behaviour.  In  fact,  there  have  been 
many  instances  in  which  they  have  been  cashiered  by  their 
corps.  Here  is  a  second  negative  on  the  choice  of  the  king ; 
a  negative  as  effectual  at  least  as  the  other  of  the  assembly. 
The  soldiers  know  already  that  it  has  been  a  question,  not 
ill  received  in  the  national  assembly,  whether  they  ought  not 
to  have  the  direct  choice  of  their  officers,  or  some  proportion 
of  them  ?  When  such  matters  are  in  deliberation,  it  is  no 
extravagant  supposition  that  they  will  incline  to  the  opinion 
most  favourable  to  their  pretensions.  They  will  not  bear  to 
be  deemed  the  army  of  an  imprisoned  king,  whilst  another 
army  in  the  same  country,  with  whom  too  they  are  to  feast 
and  confederate,  is  to  be  considered  as  the  free  army  of  a 
free  constitution.  They  will  cast  their  eyes  on  the  other  and 
more  permanent  army ;  I  mean  the  municipal.  That  corps, 
they  well  know,  does  actually  elect  its  own  officers.  They 
may  not  be  able  to  discern  the  grounds  of  distinction  on 
which  they  are  not  to  elect  a  Marquis  de  la  Fayette  (or  what 
is  his  new  name)  of  their  own  ?  If  this  election  of  a  com- 
mander in  chief  be  a  part  of  the  rights  of  men,  why  not  of 
theirs  ?  They  see  elective  justices  of  peace,  elective  judges, 
elective  curates,  elective  bishops,  elective  municipalities,  and 
elective  commanders  of  the  Parisian  army. — Why  should 
they  alone  be  excluded  ?  Are  the  brave  troops  of  France  the 
only  men  in  that  nation  who  are  not  the  fit  judges  of  military 
merit,  and  of  the  quahfications  necessary  for  a  commander 


262  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

in  chief?  Are  they  paid  by  the  state,  and  do  they  therefore 
lose  the  rights  of  men  ?  They  are  a  part  of  that  nation 
themselves,  and  contribute  to  that  pay.  And  is  not  the  king, 
is  not  the  national  assembly,  and  are  not  .all  who  elect  the 
national  assembly,  likewise  paid  ?  Instead  of  seeing  all  these 
forfeit  their  rights  by  their  receiving  a  salary,  they  perceive 
that  in  all  these  cases  a  salary  is  given  for  the  exercise  of 
those  rights.  All  your  resolutions,  all  your  proceedings,  all 
your  debates,  all  the  works  of  your  doctors  in  religion  and 
politics,  have  industriously  been  put  into  their  hands ;  and 
you  expect  that  they  will  apply  to  their  own  case  just  as 
much  of  your  doctrines  and  examples  as  suits  your  pleasure  ! 
/Jr  Every  thing  depends  upon  the  army  in  such  a  government 
as  yours;  for  you  have  industriously  destroyed  all  the  opinions, 
and  prejudices,  and,  as  far  as  in  you  lay,  all  the  instincts 
which  support  government.  Therefore  the  moment  any 
difference  arises  between  your  national  assembly  and  any 
part  of  the  nation,  you  must  have  recourse  to  force.  Nothing 
else  is  left  to  you ;  or  rather  you  have  left  nothing  else  to 
yourselves.  You  see  by  the  report  of  your  war  minister, 
that  the  distribution  of  the  army  is  in  a  great  measure  made 
with  a  view  of  internal  coercion*.  You  must  rule  by  an 
army ;  and  you  have  infused  into  that  army  by  which  you 
rule,  as  well  as  into  the  whole  body  of  the  nation,  principles 
which  after  a  time  must  disable  you  in  the  use  you  resolve 
to  make  of  it.  The  king  is  to  call  out  troops  to  act  against 
his  people,  when  the  world  has  been  told,  and  the  assertion 
is  still  ringing  in  our  ears,  that  troops  ought  not  to  fire  on 
citizens.  The  colonies  assert  to  themselves  an  independent 
constitution  and  a  free  trade.  They  must  be  constrained  by 
troops.  In  what  chapter  of  your  code  of  the  rights  of  men 
are  they  able  to  read,  that  it  is  a  part  of  the  rights  of  men  to 

*  Courier  Fran9ois,  30  July,  1790.    Assemblee  Nationale,  Num^ro 
a  10. 


THE  ARMY  AND   THE   PEOPLE,  263 

have  their  commerce  monopolized  and  restrained  for  the 
benefit  of  others  ?  As  the  colonists  rise  on  you,  the  negroes 
rise  on  them.  Troops  again — Massacre,  torture,  hanging ! 
These  are  your  rights  of  men  !  These  are  the  fruits  of 
metaphysic  declarations  wantonly  made,  and  shamefully 
retracted  1  It  was  but  the  other  day  that  the  farmers  of  land 
in  one  of  your  provinces  refused  to  pay  some  sorts  of  rents 
to  the  lord  of  the  soil.  In  consequence  of  this,  you  decree 
that  the  country  people  shall  pay  all  rents  and  dues,  except 
those  which  as  grievances  you  have  abolished  ;  and  if  they 
refuse,  then  you  order  the  king  to  march  troops  against 
them.  You  lay  down  metaphysic  propositions  which  infer 
universal  consequences,  and  then  you  attempt  to  limit  logic 
by  despotism.  The  leaders  of  the  present  system  tell  them 
of  their  rights,  as  men,  to  take  fortresses,  to  murder  guards, 
to  seize  on  kings  without  the  least  appearance  of  authority 
even  from  the  assembly,  whilst,  as  the  sovereign  legislative 
body,  that  assembly  was  sitting  in  the  name  of  the  nation ; 
and  yet  these  leaders  presume  to  order  out  the  troops,  which 
have  acted  in  these  very  disorders,  to  coerce  those  who  shall 
judge  on  the  principles,  and  follow  the  examples,  which  have 
been  guarantied  by  their  own  approbation  1 

The  leaders  teach  the  people  to  abhor  and  reject  all 
feodality  as  the  barbarism  of  tyranny,  and  they  tell  them 
afterwards  how  much  of  that  barbarous  tyranny  they  are  to 
bear  with  patience.  As  they  are  prodigal  of  light  with 
regard  to  grievances,  so  the  people  find  them  sparing  in  the 
extreme  with  regard  to  redress.  They  know  that  not  only 
certain  quit-rents  and  personal  duties,  which  you  have  per- 
mitted them  to  redeem  (but  have  furnished  no  money  for 
the  redemption)  are  as  nothing  to  those  burthens  for  which 
you  have  made  no  provision  at  all.  They  know,  that 
almost  the  whole  system  of  landed  property  in  its  origin  is 
feudal ;  that  it  is  the  distribution  of  the  possessions  of  the 


264  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

original  proprietors,  made  by  a  barbarous  conqueror  to  his 
barbarous  instruments ;  and  that  the  most  grievous  effects  of 
conquest  are  the  land  rents  of  every  kind,  as  without  ques- 
tion they  are. 

The  peasants,  in  all  probability,  are  the  descendants  of 
these  antient  proprietors,  Romans  or  Gauls.  But  if  they 
fail,  in  any  degree,  in  the  titles  which  they  make  on  the 
principles  of  antiquaries  and  lawyers,  they  retreat  into  the 
citadel  of  the  rights  of  men.  There  they  find  that  men  are 
equal ;  and  the  earth,  the  kind  and  equal  mother  of  all, 
ought  not  to  be  monopolized  to  foster  the  pride  and  luxury 
of  any  men,  who  by  nature  are  no  better  than  themselves, 
and  who,  if  they  do  not  labour  for  their  bread,  are  worse. 
They  find,  that  by  the  laws  of  nature  the  occupant  and 
subduer  of  the  soil  is  the  true  proprietor ;  that  there  is  no 
prescription  against  nature ;  and  that  the  agreements  (where 
any  there  are)  which  have  been  made  with  their  landlords, 
during  the  time  of  slavery,  are  only  the  efiect  of  duresse  and 
force  j  and  that  when  the  people  re-entered  into  the  rights 
of  men,  those  agreements  were  made  as  void  as  every  thing 
else  which  had  been  settled  under  the  prevalence  of  the  old 
feudal  and  aristocratic  tyranny.  They  will  tell  you  that  they 
see  no  difference  between  an  idler  with  a  hat  and  a  national 
cockade,  and  an  idler  in  a  cowl  or  in  a  rochet.  If  you 
ground  the  title  to  rents  on  succession  and  prescription,  they 
tell  you,  from  the  speech  of  Mr.  Camus,  published  by  the 
national  assembly  for  their  information,  that  things  ill  begim 
cannot  avail  themselves  of  prescription ;  that  the  title  of 
these  lords  was  vicious  in  its  origin;  and  that  force  is  at 
least  as  bad  as  fraud.  As  to  the  title  by  succession,  they 
will  tell  you,  that  the  succession  of  those  who  have  cultivated 
the  soil  is  the  true  pedigree  of  property,  and  not  rotten 
parchments  and  silly  substitutions ;  that  the  lords  have 
enjoyed  the  usurpation  too  long ;  and  that  if  they  allow  to 


PROPRIETORS  AND   THE  PEASANTRY.  265 

these  lay  monks  any  charitable  pension,  they  ought  to  be 
thankful  to  the  bounty  of  the  true  proprietor,  who  is  so 
generous  towards  a  false  claimant  to  his  goods. 

When  the  peasants  give  you  back  that  coin  of  sophistic 
reason,  on  which  you  have  set  your  image  and  superscrip- 
tion, you  cry  it  down  as  base  money,  and  tell  them  you  will 
pay  for  the  future  with  French  guards,  and  dragoons,  and 
hussars.  You  hold  up,  to  chastise  them,  the  second-hand 
authority  of  a  king,  who  is  only  the  instrument  of  destroying, 
without  any  power  of  protecting  either  the  people  or  his  own 
person.  Through  him,  it  seems,  you  will  make  yourselves 
obeyed.  They  answer.  You  have  taught  us  that  there  are 
no  gentlemen;  and  which  of  your  principles  teach  us  to 
bow  to  kings  whom  we  have  not  elected  ?  We  know,  with- 
out your  teaching,  that  lands  were  given  for  the  support  of 
feudal  dignities,  feudal  titles,  and  feudal  offices.  When  you 
took  down  the  cause  as  a  grievance,  why  should  the  more 
grievous  eifect  remain  ?  As  there  are  now  no  hereditary 
honours,  and  no  distinguished  families,  why  are  we  taxed  to 
maintain  what  j^ou  tell  us  ought  to  exist  ?  You  have  sent 
down  our  old  aristocratic  landlords  in  no  other  character, 
and  with  no  other  title,  but  that  of  exactors  tinder  your 
authority.  Have  you  endeavoured  to  make  these  your  rent- 
gatherers  respectable  to  us  ?  No.  You  have  sent  them  to 
us  with  their  arms  reversed,  their  shields  broken,  their 
impresses  defaced;  and  so  displumed,  degraded,  and  meta- 
morphosed, such  unfeathered  two-legged  things,  that  we  no 
longer  know  them.  They  are  strangers  to  us.  They  do 
not  even  go  by  the  names  of  our  antient  lords.  Physically 
they  may  be  the  same  men  ;  though  we  are  not  quite  sure  of 
that,  on  your  new  philosophic  doctrines  of  personal  identity. 
In  all  other  respects  they  are  totally  changed.  We  do  not  see 
why  we  have  not  as  good  a  right  to  refuse  them  their  rents, 
as  you  have  to  abrogate  all  their  honours,  titles,  and  distinc- 


265  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

tions.  This  we  have  never  commissioned  you  to  do ;  and  it 
is  one  instance,  among  many  indeed,  of  your  assumption  of 
undelegated  power.  We  see  the  burghers  of  Paris,  through 
their  clubs,  their  mobs,  and  their  national  guards,  directing 
you  at  their  pleasure,  and  giving  that  as  law  to  you,  which, 
under  your  authority,  is  transmitted  as  law  to  us.  Through 
you,  these  burghers  dispose  of  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  us 
all.  Why  should  not  you  attend  as  much  to  the  desires  of 
the  laborious  husbandman  with  regard  to  our  rent,  by  which 
we  are  affected  in  the  most  serious  manner,  as  you  do  to  the 
demands  of  these  insolent  burghers,  relative  to  distinctions 
and  titles  of  honour,  by  which  neither  they  nor  we  are 
affected  at  all  ?  But  we  find  you  pay  more  regard  to  their 
fancies  than  to  our  necessities.  Is  it  among  the  rights  of 
man  to  pay  tribute  to  his  equals  ?  Before  this  measure  of 
yours,  we  might  have  thought  we  were  not  perfectly  equal. 
We  might  have  entertained  some  old,  habitual,  unmeaning 
prepossession  in  favour  of  those  landlords;  but  we  cannot 
conceive  with  what  other  view  than  that  of  destroying  all 
respect  to  them,  you  could  have  made  the  law  that  degrades 
them.  You  have  forbidden  us  to  treat  them  with  any  of  the 
old  formalities  of  respect,  and  now  you  send  troops  to  sabre 
and  to  bayonet  us  into  a  submission  to  fear  and  force, 
which  you  did  not  suffer  us  to  yield  to  the  mild  authority  of 
opinion. 

The  ground  of  some  of  these  arguments  is  horrid  and 
ridiculous  to  all  rational  ears ;  but  to  the  politicians  of 
metaphysics  who  have  opened  schools  for  sophistry,  and 
made  establishments  for  anarchy,  it  is  solid  and  conclusive. 
It  is  obvious,  that  on  a  mere  consideration  of  the  right,  the 
leaders  in  the  assembly  would  not  in  the  least  have  scrupled 
to  abrogate  the  rents  along  with  the  tides  and  family  ensigns. 
It  would  be  only  to  follow  up  the  principle  of  their  reason- 
ings, and  to  complete  the  analogy  of  their  conduct.    But 


EFFECT   ON   THE   DEPARTMENTS.  267 

they  had  newly  possessed  themselves  of  a  great  body  of 
landed  property  by  confiscation.  They  had  this  commodity 
at  market;  and  the  market  would  have  been  wholly  de- 
stroyed, if  they  were  to  permit  the  husbandmen  to  riot  in  the 
speculations  with  which  they  so  freely  intoxicated  themselves. 
The  only  security  which  property  enjoys  in  any  one  of  its 
descriptions,  is  from  the  interests  of  their  rapacity  with 
regard  to  some  other.  They  have  left  nothing  but  their  own 
arbitrary  pleasure  to  determine  what  property  is  to  be  pro- 
tected and  what  subverted. 

Neither  have  they  left  any  principle  by  which  any  of  their 
municipalities  can  be  bound  to  obedience;  or  even  con- 
scientiously obliged  not  to  separate  from  the  whole,  to 
become  independent,  or  to  connect  itself  with  some  other 
state.  The  people  of  Lyons,  it  seems,  have  refused  lately  to 
pay  taxes.  Why  should  they  not  ?  What  lawful  authority 
is  there  left  to  exact  them  .-*  The  king  imposed  some  of 
them.  The  old  states,  methodised  by  orders,  settled  the 
more  antient.  They  may  say  to  the  assembly,  Who  are 
you,  that  are  not  our  kings,  nor  the  states  we  have  elected, 
nor  sit  on  the  principles  on  which  we  have  elected  you? 
And  who  are  we,  that  when  we  see  the  gabelles,  which  you 
have  ordered  to  be  paid,  wholly  shaken  off,  when  we  see  the 
act  of  disobedience  afterwards  ratified  by  yourselves — who 
are  we,  that  we  are  not  to  judge  what  taxes  we  ought  or 
ought  not  to  pay,  and  who  are  not  to  avail  ourselves  of  the 
same  powers,  the  validity  of  which  you  have  approved  in 
others  ?  To  this  the  answer  is.  We  will  send  troops.  The 
last  reason  of  kings  is  always  the  first  with  your  assembly. 
This  military  aid  may  serve  for  a  time,  whilst  the  impression 
of  the  increase  of  pay  remains,  and  the  vanity  of  being 
umpires  in  all  disputes  is  flattered.  But  this  weapon  will 
snap  short,  unfaithful  to  the  hand  that  employs  it.  The 
assembly  keep  a  school  where,  systematically,  and  with  un- 


268  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

remitting  perseverance,  they  teach  principles,  and  form 
regulations,  destructive  to  all  spirit  of  subordination,  civil  and 
military — and  then  they  expect  that  they  shall  hold  in 
obedience  an  anarchic  people  by  an  anarchic  army  ! 

The  municipal  army,  which,  according  to  their  new 
policy,  is  to  balance  this  national  army,  if  considered  in 
itself  only,  is  of  a  constitution  much  more  simple,  and  in 
every  respect  less  exceptionable.  It  is  a  mere  democratic 
body,  unconnected  with  the  crown  or  the  kingdom ;  armed, 
and  trained,  and  officered  at  the  pleasure  of  the  districts  to 
which  the  corps  severally  belong ;  and  the  personal  service 
of  the  individuals  who  compose  it,  or  the  fine  in  lieu  of 
personal  service,  are  directed  by  the  same  authority*. 
Nothing  is  more  uniform.  If,  however,  considered  in  any 
relation  to  the  crown,  to  the  national  assembly,  to  the  public 
tribunals,  or  to  the  other  army,  or  considered  in  a  view  to 
any  coherence  or  connection  between  its  parts,  it  seems  a 
monster,  and  can  hardly  fail  to  terminate  its  perplexed 
movements  in  some  great  national  calamity.  It  is  a  worse 
preservative  of  a  general  constitution,  than  the  systasis  of 
Crete,  or  the  confederation  of  Poland,  or  any  other  ill- 
devised  corrective  which  has  yet  been  imagined,  in  the 
necessities  produced  by  an  ill-constructed  system  of  govern- 
ment. 

Having  concluded  my  few  remarks  on  the  constitution  of 
the  supreme  power,  the  executive,  the  judicature,  the 
military,  and  on  the  reciprocal  relation  of  all  these  establish- 
ments, I  shall  say  something  of  the  ability  shewed  by  your 
legislators  with  regard  to  the  revenue. 

*  I  see  by  M.  Necker's  account,  that  the  national  guards  of  Paris 
have  received,  over  and  above  the  money  levied  within  their  own  city, 
about  145,000/.  sterling  out  of  the  public  treasure.  Whether  this  be  an 
actual  payment  for  the  nine  months  of  their  existence,  or  an  estimate  of 
their  yearly  charge,  I  do  not  clearly  perceive.  It  is  of  no  great  impor- 
tance, as  certainly  they  may  take  whatever  they  please. 


FINANCIAL  POLICY.  269 

In  their  proceedings  relative  to  this  object,  if  possible, 
still  fewer  traces  appear  of  political  judgment  or  financial 
resource.  When  the  states  met,  it  seemed  to  be  the  great 
object  to  improve  the  system  of  revenue,  to  enlarge  its  con- 
nection, to  cleanse  it  of  oppression  and  vexation,  and  to  es- 
tablish it  on  the  most  solid  footing.  Great  were  the  expec- 
tations entertained  on  that  head  throughout  Europe.  It  was 
by  this  grand  arrangement  that  France  was  to  stand  or  fall ; 
and  this  became,  (in  my  opinion,  very  properly,)  the  test  by 
which  the  skill  and  patriotism  of  those  who  ruled  in  that 
assembly  would  be  tried.  The  revenue  of  the  state  is  the 
state.  In  effect  all  depends  upon  it,  whether  for  support  or 
for  reformation.  The  dignity  of  every  occupation  wholly 
depends  upon  the  quantity  and  the  kind  of  virtue  that  may 
be  exerted  in  it.  As  all  great  qualities  of  the  mind  which 
operate  in  public,  and  are  not  merely  suffering  and  pas- 
sive, require  force  for  their  display,  I  had  almost  said  for 
their  unequivocal  existence,  the  revenue,  which  is  the  spring 
of  all  power,  becomes  in  its  administration  the  sphere  of  every 
active  virtue.  Public  virtue,  being  of  a  nature  magnificent  and 
splendid,  instituted  for  great  things,  and  conversant  about 
great  concerns,  requires  abundant  scope  and  room,  and 
cannot  spread  and  grow  under  confinement,  and  in  circum- 
stances straitened,  narrow,  and  sordid.  Through  the  revenue 
alone  the  body  politic  can  act  in  its  true  genius  and  char- 
acter, and  therefore  it  will  display  just  as  much  of  its 
collective  virtue,  and  as  much  of  that  virtue  which  may 
characterise  those  who  move  it,  and  are,  as  it  were,  its  life 
and  guiding  principle,  as  it  is  possessed  of  a  just  revenue. 
For  from  hence,  not  only  magnanimity,  and  liberality,  and 
beneficence,  and  fortitude,  and  providence,  and  the  tutelary 
protection  of  all  good  arts,  derive  their  food,  and  the  growth 
of  their  organs,  but  continence,  and  self-denial,  and  labour, 
and  vigilance,  and  frugality,  and  whatever  else  there  is  in 


270  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

which  the  mind  shews  itself  above  the  appetite,  are  no  where 
more  in  their  proper  element  than  in  the  provision  and  dis- 
tribution of  the  public  wealth.  It  is  therefore  not  without 
reason  that  the  science  of  speculative  and  practical  finance, 
which  must  take  to  its  aid  so  many  auxiliary  branches  of 
knowledge,  stands  high  in  the  estimation  not  only  of  the 
ordinary  sort,  but  of  the  wisest  and  best  men;  and  as  this 
science  has  grown  with  the  progress  of  its  object,  the 
prosperity  and  improvement  of  nations  has  generally  en- 
creased  with  the  encrease  of  their  revenues ;  and  they  will 
both  continue  to  grow  and  flourish,  as  long  as  the  balance 
between  what  is  left  to  strengthen  the  efforts  of  individuals, 
and  what  is  collected  for  the  common  efforts  of  the  state, 
bear  to  each  other  a  due  reciprocal  proportion,  and  are  kept 
in  a  close  correspondence  and  communication.  And  per- 
haps it  may  be  owing  to  the  greatness  of  revenues,  and  to 
the  urgency  of  state  necessities,  that  old  abuses  in  the  consti- 
tution of  finances  are  discovered,  and  their  true  nature  and 
rational  theory  comes  to  be  more  perfectly  understood ;  in- 
somuch that  a  smaller  revenue  might  have  been  more  dis- 
tressing in  one  period  than  a  far  greater  is  found  to  be  in 
another ;  the  proportionate  wealth  even  remaining  the  same. 
In  this  state  of  things,  the  French  assembly  found  something 
in  their  revenues  to  preserve,  to  secure,  and  wisely  to 
administer,  as  well  as  to  abrogate  and  alter.  Though  their 
proud  assumption  might  justify  the  severest  tests,  yet  in 
trying  their  abilities  on  their  financial  proceedings,  I  would 
only  consider  what  is  the  plain  obvious  duty  of  a  common 
finance  minister,  and  try  them  upon  that,  and  not  upon 
models  of  ideal  perfection. 

The  objects  of  a  financier  are,  then,  to  secure  an  ample 
revenue;  to  impose  it  with  judgment  and  equality;  to 
employ  it  oeconomically ;  and  when  necessity  obliges  him  to 
make  use  of  credit,  to  secure  its  foimdations  in  that  instance, 


FALLING-OFF  OF   THE  REVENUE.  27 1 

and  for  ever,  by  the  clearness  and  candour  of  his  proceed- 
ings, the  exactness  of  his  calculations,  and  the  solidity  of  his 
funds.  On  these  heads  we  may  take  a  short  and  distinct 
view  of  the  merits  and  abilities  of  those  in  the  national 
assembly,  who  have  taken  to  themselves  the  management  of 
this  arduous  concern.  Far  from  any  encrease  of  revenue  in 
their  hands,  I  find,  by  a  report  of  M.  Vernier,  from  the 
committee  of  finances,  of  the  second  of  August  last,  that  the 
amount  of  the  national  revenue,  as  compared  with  its 
produce  before  the  revolution,  was  diminished  by  the  sum  of 
two  hundred  millions,  or  e/g/i/  millions  sterling  of  the  annual 
income — considerably  mone  than  one  third  of  the  whole  ! 

If  this  be  the  result  of  great  ability,  never  surely  was 
ability  displayed  in  a  more  distinguished  manner,  or  with  so 
powerful  an  effect.  No  common  folly,  no  vulgar  incapacity, 
no  ordinary  official  negligence,  even  no  official  crime,  no 
corruption,  no  peculation,  hardly  any  direct  hostility  which 
we  have  seen  in  the  modern  world,  could  in  so  short  a  time 
have  made  so  complete  an  overthrow  of  the  finances,  and 
with  them,  of  the  strength,  of  a  great  kingdom. —  Cedo  qui 
vestram  rempublicam  tantam  amisistis  tarn  cito  ? 
C^The  sophisters  and  declaimers,  as  soon  as  the  assembly 
met,  began  with  decrying  the  antient  constitution  of  the 
revenue  in  many  of  its  most  essential  branches,  such  as  the 
public  monopoly  of  salt.  They  charged  it,  as  triily  as  un- 
wisely, with  being  ill-contrived,  oppressive,  and  partial. 
This  representation  they  were  not  satisfied  to  make  use  of 
in  speeches  preliminary  to  some  plan  of  reform ;  they  de- 
clared it  in  a  solemn  resolution  or  public  sentence,  as  it 
were  judicially,  passed  upon  it;  and  this  they  dispersed 
throughout  the  nation.  At  the  time  they  passed  the  decree, 
with  the  same  gravity  they  ordered  this  same  absurd, 
oppressive,  and  partial  tax  to  be  paid,  until  they  could  find  a 
revenue   to  replace  it.      The  consequence   was  inevitable. 


272  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

The  provinces  which  had  been  always  exempted  from  this 
salt  monopoly,  some  of  whom  were  charged  with  other  con- 
tributions, perhaps  equivalent,  were  totally  disinclined  to  bear 
any  part  of  the  burthen,  which  by  an  equal  distribution  was 
to  redeem  the  others.  As  to  the  assembly,  occupied  as  it 
was  with  the  declaration  and  violation  of  the  rights  of  men, 
and  with  their  arrangements  for  general  confusion,  it  had 
neither  leisure  nor  capacity  to  contrive,  n,or  authority  to 
enforce  any  plan  of  any  kind  relative  to  the  replacing  the 
tax  or  equalizing  it,  or  compensating  the  provinces,  or  for 
conducting  their  minds  to  any  scheme  of  accommodation 
with  the  other  districts  which  were  to  be  relieved. 

The  people  of  the  salt  provinces,  impatient  under  taxes 
damned  by  the  authority  which  had  directed  their  payment, 
very  soon  found  their  patience  exhausted.  They  thought 
themselves  as  skilful  in  demolishing  as  the  assembly  could 
be.  They  relieved  themselves  by  throwing  off  the  whole 
burthen.  Animated  by  this  example,  each  district,  or  part  of 
a  district,  judging  of  its  own  grievance  by  its  own  feeling, 
and  of  its  remedy  by  its  own  opinion,  did  as  it  pleased  with 
other  taxes. 
^^^We  are  next  to  see  how  they  have  conducted  them- 
selves in  contriving  equal  impositions,  proportioned  to  the 
means  of  the  citizens,  and  the  least  likely  to  lean  heavy  on 
the  active  capital  employed  in  the  generation  of  that  private 
wealth,  from  whence  the  public  fortune  must  be  derived. 
By  suffering  the  several  districts,  and  several  of  the  indivi- 
duals in  each  district,  to  judge  of  what  part  of  the  old 
revenue  they  might  withhold,  instead  of  better  principles  of 
equality,  a  new  inequality  was  introduced  of  the.  most 
oppressive  kind.  Payments  were  regulated  by  dispositions. 
The  parts  of  the  kingdom  which  were  the  most  submissive, 
the  most  orderly,  or  the  most  affectionate  to  the  common- 
wealth, bore  the  whole  burthen  of  the  state.     Nothing  turns 


THE  'PATRIOTIC  DONATIONS.'  373 

out  to  be  so  oppressive  and  unjust  as  a  feeble  government. 
To  fill  up  all  the  deficiencies  in  the  old  impositions,  and  the 
new  deficiencies  of  every  kind  which  were  to  be  expected, 
what  remained  to  a  state  without  authority  ?  The  national 
assembly  called  for  a  voluntary  benevolence;  for  a  fourth 
part  of  the  income  of  all  the  citizens,  to  be  estimated  on  the 
honour  of  those  who  were  to  pay.  They  obtained  some- 
thing more  than  could  be  rationally  calculated,  but  what  was 
far  indeed  from  answerable  to  their  real  necessities,  and 
much  less  to  their  fond  expectations.  Rational  people  could 
have  hoped  for  little  from  this  their  tax  in  the  disguise  of  a 
benevolence ;  a  tax,  weak,  ineffective,  and  unequal ;  a  tax  by 
which  luxury,  avarice,  and  selfishness  were  screened,  and 
the  load  thrown  upon  productive  capital,  upon  integrity, 
generosity,  and  public  spirit  —  a  tax  of  regulation  upon 
virtue.  At  length  the  mask  is  thrown  off,  and  they  are  now 
trying  means  (with  little  success)  of  exacting  their  benevo- 
lence by  force. 

This  benevolence,  the  ricketty  oflfspring  of  weakness,  was 
to  be  supported  by  another  resource,  the  twin  brother  of  the 
same  prolific  imbecility.  The  patriotic  donations  were  to 
make  good  the  failure  of  the  patriotic  contribution.  John 
Doe  was  to  become  security  for  Richard  Roe.  By  this 
scheme  they  took  things  of  much  price  from  the  giver,  com- 
paratively of  small  value  to  the  receiver ;  they  ruined  several 
trades;  they  pillaged  the  crown  of  its  ornaments,  the 
churches  of  their  plate,  and  the  people  of  their  personal 
decorations.  The  invention  of  these  juvenile  pretenders  to 
liberty,  was  in  reality  nothing  more  than  a  servile  imitation 
of  one  of  the  poorest  resources  of  doting  despotism.  They 
took  an  old  huge  full-bottomed  perriwig  out  of  the  wardrobe 
of  the  antiquated  frippery  of  Louis  XIV.,  to  cover  the  pre- 
mature baldness  of  the  national  assembly.  They  produced 
this  old-fashioned  formal  folly,  though  it  had  been  so  abund- 

VOL.  II.  T 


2/4  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

antly  exposed  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  Duke  de  St.  Simon,  if 
to  reasonable  men  it  had  wanted  any  arguments  to  display 
its  mischief  and  insufficiency.  A  device  of  the  same  kind 
was  tried  in  my  memory  by  Louis  XV.,  but  it  answered  at  no 
time.  However,  the  necessities  of  ruinous  wars  were  some 
excuse  for  desperate  projects.  The  deliberations  of  calamity 
are  rarely  wise.  But  here  was  a  season  for  disposition  and 
providence.  It  was  in  a  time  of  profound  peace,  then 
enjoyed  for  five  years,  and  promising  a  much  longer  con- 
tinuance, that  they  had  recourse  to  this  desperate  trifling. 
They  were  sure  to  lose  more  reputation  by  sporting,  in  their 
serious  situation,  with  these  toys  and  playthings  of  finance, 
which  have  filled  half  their  journals,  than  could  possibly  be 
compensated  by  the  poor  temporary  supply  which  they 
afforded.  It  seemed  as  if  those  who  adopted  such  projects 
were  wholly  ignorant  of  their  circumstances,  or  wholly  un- 
equal to  their  necessities.  Whatever  virtue  may  be  in  these 
devices,  it  is  obvious  that  neither  the  patriotic  gifts,  nor  the 
patriotic  contribution,  can  ever  be  resorted  to  again.  The 
resources  of  public  folly  are  soon  exhausted.  The  whole 
indeed  of  their  scheme  of  revenue  is  to  make,  by  any 
artifice,  an  appearance  of  a  full  reservoir  for  the  hour,  whilst 
at  the  same  time  they  cut  off  the  springs  and  living  foun- 
tains of  perennial  supply.  The  account  not  long  since 
furnished  by  Mr.  Necker  was  meant,  without  question,  to  be 
favourable.  He  gives  a  flattering  view  of  the  means  of 
getting  through  the  year ;  but  he  expresses,  as  it  is  natural 
he  should,  some  apprehension  for  that  which  was  to  succeed. 
On  this  last  prognostic,  instead  of  entering  into  the  grounds 
of  this  apprehension,  in  order  by  a  proper  foresight,  to 
prevent  the  prognosticated  evil,  Mr.  Necker  receives  a  sort 
of  friendly  reprimand  from  the  president  of  the  assembly. 

As  to  their  other  schemes  of  taxation,  it  is  impossible 
to  say  any  thing  of  them  with  certainty;  because  they  have 


PAPER   CURRENCF  IN  ENGLAND.  275 

not  yet  had  their  operation ;  but  nobody  is  so  sanguine  as  to 
imagine  they  will  fill  up  any  perceptible  part  of  the  wide 
gaping  breach  which  their  incapacity  has  made  in  their 
revenues.  At  present  the  state  of  their  treasury  sinks  every 
day  more  and  more  in  cash,  and  swells  more  and  more  in 
fictitious  representation.  When  so  httle  within  or  without  is 
now  found  but  paper,  the  representative  not  of  opulence  but 
of  want,  the  creature  not  of  credit  but  of  power,  they  imagine 
that  our  flourishing  state  in  England  is  owing  to  that  bank- 
paper,  and  not  the  bank-paper  to  the  flourishing  condition  of 
our  commerce,  to, the  solidity  of  our  credit,  and  to  the  total 
exclusion  of  all  idea  of  power  from  any  part  of  the  trans- 
action. They  forget  that,  in  England,  not  one  shilling  of 
paper-money  of  any  description  is  received  but  of  choice; 
that  the  whole  has  had  its  origin  in  cash  actually  deposited  ; 
and  that  it  is  convertible,  at  pleasure,  in  an  instant,  and 
without  the  smallest  loss,  into  cash  again.  Our  paper  is 
of  value  in  commerce,  because  in  law  it  is  of  none.  It  is 
powerful  on  Change,  because  in  Westminster-hall  it  is  im- 
potent. In  payment  of  a  debt  of  twenty  shillings,  a  creditor 
may  refuse  all  the  paper  of  the  bank  of  England.  Nor  is 
there  amongst  us  a  single  public  security,  of  any  quality 
or  nature  whatsoever,  that  is  enforced  by  authority.  In  fact 
it  might  be  easily  shewn,  that  our  paper  wealth,  instead 
of  lessening  the  real  coin,  has  a  tendency  to  encrease  it; 
instead  of  being  a  substitute  for  money,  it  only  facilitates 
its  entry,  its  exit,  and  its  circulation;  that  it  is  the  symbol 
of  prosperity,  and  not  the  badge  of  distress.  Never  was 
a  scarcity  of  cash,  and  an  exuberance  of  paper,  a  subject 
of  complaint  in  this  nation. 

Well!  But  a  lessening  of  prodigal  expences,  and  the 
ceconomy  which  has  been  introduced  by  the  virtuous  and 
sapient  assembly,  makes  amends  for  the  losses  sustained 
in  the  receipt  of  revenue.     In  this  at  least  they  have  fulfilled 

T    2 


l']6  REVOLUTION  IN   FRANCE. 

the  duty  of  a  financier. — Have  those,  who  say  so,  looked 
at  the  expences  of  the  national  assembly  itself?  of  the 
municipalities?  of  the  city  of  Paris?  of  the  increased  pay 
of  the  two  armies  ?  of  the  new  police  ?  of  the  new  judica- 
tures? Have  they  even  carefully  compared  the  present 
pension-list  with  the  former?  These  politicians  have  been 
cruel,  not  oeconomical.  Comparing  the  expences  of  the 
former  prodigal  government,  and  its  relation  to  the  then 
revenues,  with  the  expences  of  this  new  system  as  opposed  to 
the  state  of  its  new  treasury,  I  believe  the  present  will  be 
found  beyond  all  comparison  more  chargeable  *. 

It  remains  only  to  consider  the  proofs  of  financial  ability 
furnished  by  the  present  French  managers  when  they  are 
to  raise  supplies  on  credit.  Here  I  am  a  little  at  a  stand ; 
for  credit,  properly  speaking,  they  have  none.  The  credit  of 
the  antient  government  was  not  indeed  the  best :  but  they 
could  always,  on  some  terms,  command  money,  not  only 
at  home,  but  from  most  of  the  countries  of  Europe  where 
a  surplus  capital  was  accumulated;  and  the  credit  of  that 
government  was  improving  daily.  The  establishment  of  a 
system  of  liberty  would  of  course  be  supposed  to  give  it 
new  strength;  and  so  it  would   actually  have   done,  if  a 

*  The  reader  will  observe,  that  I  have  but  lightly  touched  (my  plan 
demanded  nothing  more)  on  the  condition  of  the  French  finances,  as 
connected  with  the  demands  upon  them.  If  I  had  intended  to  do 
otherwise,  the  materials  in  my  hands  for  such  a  task  are  not  altogether 
perfect.  On  this  subject  I  refer  the  reader  to  M.  de  Calonne's  work ; 
and  the  tremendous  display  that  he  has  made  of  the  havock  and 
devastation  in  the  public  estate,  and  in  all  the  affairs  of  France,  caused 
by  the  presumptuous  good  intentions  of  ignorance  and  incapacity. 
Such  effects,  those  causes  will  always  produce.  Looking  over  that 
account  with  a  pretty  strict  eye,  and,  with  perhaps  too  much  rigour, 
deducting  every  thing  which  may  be  placed  to  the  account  of  a  financier 
out  of  place,  who  might  be  supposed  by  his  enemies  desirous  of  making 
the  most  of  his  cause,  I  believe  it  will  be  found,  that  a  more  salutary 
lesson  of  caution  against  the  daring  spirit  of  innovators  than  what 
has  been  supplied  at  the  expence  of  France,  never  was  at  any  time 
furnished  to  mankind. 


A  SSI  GNATS    THE    ONLY  RESOURCE.  277 

system  of  liberty  had  been  established.  What  offers  has 
their  government  of  pretended  liberty  had  from  Holland, 
from  Hamburgh,  from  Switzerland,  from  Genoa,  from 
England,  for  a  dealing  in  their  paper  ?  Why  should  these 
nations  of  commerce  and  oeconomy  enter  into  any  pecuniary 
dealings  with  a  people  who  attempt  to  reverse  the  very 
nature  of  things;  amongst  whom  they  see  the  debtor  pre- 
scribing, at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  the  medium  of  his 
solvency  to  the  creditor;  discharging  one  of  his  engage- 
ments with  another;  turning  his  very  penury  into  his  re- 
source ;  and  paying  his  interest  with  his  rags  ? 

Their  fanatical  confidence  in  the  omnipotence  of  church 
plunder,  has  induced  these  philosophers  to  overlook  all  care 
of  the  public  estate,  just  as  the  dream  of  the  philosopher's 
stone  induces  dupes,  under  the  more  plausible  delusion 
of  the  hermetic  art,  to  neglect  all  rational  means  of  im- 
proving their  fortunes.  With  these  philosophic  financiers, 
this  universal  medicine  made  of  church  mummy  is  to  cure 
all.  the  evils  of  the  state.  These  gentlemen  perhaps  do 
not  beheve  a  great  deal  in  the  miracles  of  piety;  but 
it  cannot  be  questioned  that  they  have  an  undoubting 
faith  in  the  prodigies  of  sacrilege.  Is  there  a  debt  which 
presses  them? — Issue  asstgnats.  Are  compensations  to  be 
made,  or  a  maintenance  decreed  to  those  whom  they  have 
robbed  of  their  freehold  in  their  office,  or  expelled  from  their 
profession.? — Asstgnais.  Is  a  fleet  to  be  fitted  out? — As- 
signais.  If  sixteen  millions  sterling  of  these  asstgnats,  forced 
on  the  people,  leave  the  wants  of  the  state  as  urgent  as  ever 
— issue,  says  one,  thirty  millions  sterling  of  asstgnats — 
says  another,  issue  fourscore  millions  more  of  asstgnats. 
The  only  difference  among  their  financial  factions  is  on 
the  greater  or  the  lesser  quantity  of  asstgnats  to  be  imposed 
on  the  publick  sufferance.  They  are  all  professors  of  as- 
stgnats.    Even  those,  whose  natural  good  sense  and  know- 


278  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

ledge  of  commerce,  not  obliterated  by  philosophy,  furnish 
decisive  arguments  against  this  delusion,  conclude  their 
arguments,  by  proposing  the  emission  of  assignais.  I  sup- 
pose they  must  talk  of  assi'gnats,  as  no  other  language  would 
be  understood.  All  experience  of  their  inefficacy  does  not 
in  the  least  discourage  them.  Are  the  old  assignats  de- 
preciated at  market  ?  What  is  the  remedy  ? — Issue  new 
assTgnats. — Mais  si  maladia,  opiniairia,  non  vuli  se  garire, 
quid  illi  facer e  ? — Assignare  ;  postea  assignare  ;  ensuita  aS' 
signare.  The  word  is  a  trifle  altered.  The  Latin  of  your 
present  doctors  may  be  better  than  that  of  your  old  comedy; 
their  wisdom,  and  the  variety  of  their  resources,  are  the  same. 
They  have  not  more  notes  in  their  song  than  the  cuckow ; 
though,  far  from  the  softness  of  that  harbinger  of  summer 
and  plenty,  their  voice  is  as  harsh  and  as  ominous  as  that  of 
the  raven. 

Who  but  the  most  desperate  adventurers  in  philosophy 
and  finance  could  at  all  have  thought  of  destroying  the 
settled  revenue  of  the  state,  the  sole  security  for  the  public 
credit,  in  the  hope  of  rebuilding  it  with  the  materials  of 
confiscated  property?  If,  however,  an  excessive  zeal  for 
the  state  should  have  led  a  pious  and  venerable  prelate, 
by  anticipation  a  father  of  the  church*,  to  pillage  his  own 
order,  and,  for  the  good  of  the  church  and  people,  to 
take  upon  himself  the  place  of  grand  financier  of  confis- 
cation, and  comptroller-general  of  sacrilege,  he  and  his 
coadjutors  were,  in  my  opinion,  bound  to  shew,  by  their 
subsequent  conduct,  that  they  knew  something  of  the  ofiice 
they  assumed.  When  they  had  resolved  to  appropriate  to 
the  Fisc  a  certain  portion  of  the  landed  property  of  their 
conquered  country,  it  was  their  business  to  render  their 
bank  a  real  fund  of  credit,  as  far  as  such  a  bank  was 
capable  of  becoming  so. 

*  La  Bruycre  of  Bossuet. 


METHOD   OF  A   LAND-BANi:.  279 

To  establish  a  current  circulating  credit  upon  any  Land- 
bank,  under  any  circumstances  whatsoever,  has  hitherto 
proved  difficult  at  the  very  least.  The  attempt  has  com- 
monly ended  in  bankruptcy.  But  when  the  assembly  were 
led,  through  a  contempt  of  moral,  to  a  defiance  of  oeco- 
nomical  principles,  it  might  at  least  have  been  expected 
that  nothing  would  be  omitted  on  their  part  to  lessen  this 
difficulty,  to  prevent  any  aggravation  of  this  bankruptcy.  It 
might  be  expected  that  to  render  your  Land-bank  tolerable, 
every  means  would  be  adopted  that  could  display  openness 
and  candour  in  the  statement  of  the  security;  every  thing 
which  could  aid  the  recovery  of  the  demand.  To  take 
things  in  their  most  favourable  point  of  view,  your  condition 
was  that  of  a  man  of  a  large  landed  estate,  which  he  wished 
to  dispose  of  for  the  discharge  of  a  debt,  and  the  supply 
of  certain  services.  Not  being  able  instantly  to  sell,  you 
wished  to  mortgage.  What  would  a  man  of  fair  intentions, 
and  a  commonly  clear  understanding,  do  in  such  circum- 
stances ?  Ought  he  not  first  to  ascertain  the  gross  value 
of  the  estate;  the  charges  of  its  management  and  dis- 
position; the  encumbrances,  perpetual  and  temporary,  of 
all  kinds,  that  affect  it;  then,  striking  a  net  surplus,  to 
calculate  the  just  value  of  the  security  ?  When  that  surplus, 
the  only  security  to  the  creditor,  had  been  clearly  ascer- 
tained, and  properly  vested  in  the  hands  of  trustees ;  then  he 
would  indicate  the  parcels  to  be  sold,  and  the  time,  and 
conditions  of  sale;  after  this,  he  would  admit  the  public 
creditor,  if  he  chose  it,  to  subscribe  his  stock  into  this 
new  fund;  or  he  might  receive  proposals  for  an  assignat 
from  those  who  would  advance  money  to  purchase  this 
species  of  security. 

This  would  be  to  proceed  like  men  of  business,  method- 
ically and  rationally;  and  on  the  only  principles  of  public 
and  private  credit  that  have  an  existence.    The  dealer  would 


28o  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

then  know  exactly  what  he  purchased ;  and  the  only  doubt 
which  could  hang  upon  his  mind  would  be,  the  dread  of  the 
resumption  of  the  spoil,  which  one  day  might  be  made 
(perhaps  with  an  addition  of  punishment)  from  the  sacri- 
legious gripe  of  those  execrable  wretches  who  could  be- 
come purchasers  at  the  auction  of  their  innocent  fellow- 
citizens. 

An  open  and  exact  statement  of  the  clear  value  of  the 
property,  and  of  the  time,  the  circumstances,  and  the  place 
of  sale,  were  all  necessary,  to  efface  as  much  as  possible 
the  stigma  that  has  hitherto  been  branded  on  every  kind 
of  Land-bank.  It  became  necessary  on  another  principle, 
that  is,  on  account  of  a  pledge  of  faith  previously  given 
on  that  subject,  that  their  future  fidelity  in  a  slippery  concern 
might  be  established  by  their  adherence  to  their  first  engage- 
ment. When  they  had  finally  determined  on  a  state  resource 
from  church  booty,  they  came,  on  the  14th  of  April  1790,  to 
a  solemn  resolution  on  the  subject;  and  pledged  themselves 
to  their  country,  '  that  in  the  statement  of  the  public  charges 
for  each  year  there  should  be  brought  to  account  a  sum 
sufficient  for  defraying  the  expences  of  the  R.  C.  A.  religion, 
the  support  of  the  ministers  at  the  altars,  the  relief  of  the 
poor,  the  pensions  to  the  ecclesiastics,  secular  as  well  as 
regular,  of  the  one  and  of  the  other  sex,  m  order  that  the 
estates  and  goods  which  are  at  the  disposal  of  the  iiation 
may  be  disengaged  of  all  charges,  and  employed  by  the  repre- 
sentatives, or  the  legislative  body,  to  the  great  and  most  pressing 
exigencies  of  the  state.'  They  further  engaged,  on  the  same 
day,  that  the  sum  necessary  for  the  year  1791  should  be 
forthwith  determined. 

In  this  resolution  they  admit  it  their  duty  to  show  dis- 
tinctly the  expence  of  the  above  objects,  which,  by  other 
resolutions,  they  had  before  engaged  should  be  first  in 
the  order  of  provision.     They  admit  that  they  ought  to  shew 


REAL  NATURE   OF   THE   TRANSACTION.         281 

the  estate  clear  and  disengaged  of  all  charges,  and  that  they 
should  shew  it  immediately.  Have  they  done  this  imme- 
diately, or  at  any  time  ?  Have  they  ever  furnished  a  rent- 
roll  of  the  immoveable  estates,  or  given  in  an  inventory  of 
the  moveable  effects  which  they  confiscate  to  their  asstgnais  ? 
In  what  manner  they  can  fulfil  their  engagements  of  holding 
out  to  public  service  'an  estate  disengaged  of  all  charges,' 
without  authenticating  the  value  of  the  estate,  or  the  quatitum 
of  the  charges,  I  leave  it  to  their  English  admirers  to  explain. 
Instantly  upon  this  assurance,  and  previously  to  any  one 
step  towards  making  it  good,  they  issue,  on  the  credit  of 
so  handsome  a  declaration,  sixteen  millions  sterHng  of  their 
paper.  This  was  manly.  Who,  after  this  masterly  stroke, 
can  doubt  of  their  abilities  in  finance? — But  then,  before  any 
other  emission  of  these  financial  indulgences,  they  took  care 
at  least  to  make  good  their  original  promise! — If  such 
estimate,  either  of  the  value  of  the  estate  or  the  amount 
of  the  incumbrances,  has  been  made,  it  has  escaped  me. 
I  never  heard  of  it. 

At  length  they  have  spoken  out,  and  they  have  made  a  full 
discovery  of  their  abominable  fraud,  in  holding  out  the 
church  lands  as  a  security  for  any  debts  or  any  service 
whatsoever.  They  rob  only  to  enable  them  to  cheat ;  but  in 
a  very  short  time  they  defeat  the  ends  both  of  the  robbery 
and  the  fraud,  by  making  out  accounts  for  other  purposes, 
which  blow  up  their  whole  apparatus  of  force  and  of  de- 
ception. I  am  obliged  to  M.  de  Calonne  for  his  reference  to 
the  document  which  proves  this  extraordinary  fact :  it  had, 
by  some  means,  escaped  me.  Indeed  it  was  not  necessary 
to  make  out  my  assertion  as  to  the  breach  of  faith  on 
the  declaration  of  the  14th  of  April  1790.  By  a  report 
of  their  Committee  it  now  appears,  that  the  charge  of 
keeping  up  the  reduced  ecclesiastical  establishments,  and 
other  expences  attendant  on  religion,  and  maintaining  the 


282  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

religious  of  both  sexes,  retained  or  pensioned,  and  the  other 
concomitant  expences  of  the  same  nature,  which  they  have 
brought  upon  themselves  by  this  convulsion  in  property, 
exceeds  the  income  of  the  estates  acquired  by  it  in  the 
enormous  sum  of  two  millions  sterling  annually;  besides 
a  debt  of  seven  millions  and  upwards.  These  are  the 
calculating  powers  of  imposture !  This  is  the  finance  of 
philosophy !  This  is  the  result  of  all  the  delusions  held  out 
to  engage  a  miserable  people  in  rebellion,  murder,  and 
sacrilege,  and  to  make  them  prompt  and  zealous  instruments 
in  the  ruin  of  their  country !  Never  did  a  state,  in  any  case, 
enrich  itself  by  the  confiscations  of  the  citizens.  This  new 
experiment  has  succeeded  like  all  the  rest.  Every  honest 
mind,  every  true  lover  of  liberty  and  humanity  must  rejoice 
to  find  that  injustice  is  not  always  good  policy,  nor  rapine 
the  high  road  to  riches.  I  subjoin  with  pleasure,  in  a  note, 
the  able  and  spirited  observations  of  M.  de  Calonne  on  this 
subject  *. 

*  'Ce  n'est  point  a  I'assemblee  entiere  que  je  m'adresse  ici;  je  ne 
parle  qii'a  ceux  qui  I'egarent,  en  lui  cachant  sous  des  gazes  seduisantes 
le  but  Ob.  ils  Tentrainent.  C'est  a  eux  que  je  dis :  Votre  objet,  vous  n'en 
disconviendiez  pas,  c'est  d'oter  tout  espoir  au  clerge,  &  de  consommer 
sa  mine ;  c'est-la,  en  ne  vous  soup9onnant  d'aucune  combinaison  de 
cupidite,  d'aucun  regard  sur  le  jeu  des  effets  publics,  c'est-la  ce  qu'on 
doit  croire  que  vous  avez  en  vue  dans  la  terrible  operation  que  vous 
proposez;  c'est  ce  qui  doit  en  etre  le  fruit.  Mais  le  peuple  que  vous 
y  interessez,  quel  avantage  peut-il  y  trouver?  En  vous  servant  sans 
cesse  de  lui,  que  faites  vous  pour  lui  ?  Rien,  absolument  1  ien ;  &,  au 
contraire,  vous  faites  ce  qui  ne  conduit  qu'a  I'accabler  de  nouvelles 
charges.  Vous  avez  rejete,  a  son  prejudice,  une  offre  de  400  millions, 
dont  I'acceptation  pouvoit  devenir  un  moyen  de  soulagement  en  sa 
faveur ;  &  a  cette  ressource,  aussi  profitable  que  legitime,  vous  avez 
substitu^  une  injustice  niineuse,  qui,  de  votre  propre  aveu,  charge  le 
tresor  public,  &  par  consequent  le  peuple,  d'un  surcroit  de  depense 
annuelle  de  50  millions  au  moins,  &  d'un  remboursement  de  150 
millions. 

'  Malheureux  peuple !  voila  ce  que  vous  vaut  en  dernier  r^sultat 
I'expropriation  de  I'Eglise,  &  la  durete  des  decrets  taxateurs  du  traite- 
ment  des  ministres  d'une  religion  bienfaisante ;  &  desormais  ils  seront  4 
votre  charge :  leurs  charites  soulageoient  les  pauvres ;  &  vous  allez  etre 
imposes  pour  subvenir  a  leur  entretien  !' — De  I'Etat  de  la  France,  p.  Si. 
See  also  p.  92,  and  the  following  pages. 


CHARGES   ON   THE  LAND  FUND.  283 

In  order  to  persuade  the  world  of  the  bottomless  resource 
of  ecclesiastical  confiscation,  the  assembly  have  proceeded 
to  other  confiscations  of  estates  in  offices,  which  could  not 
be  done  with  any  common  colour  without  being  compensated 
out  of  this  grand  confiscation  of  landed  property.  They 
have  thrown,  upon  this  fund,  which  was  to  shew  a  surplus, 
disengaged  of  all  charges,  a  new  charge ;  namely,  the  com- 
pensation to  the  whole  body  of  the  disbanded  judicature; 
and  of  all  suppressed  offices  and  estates ;  a  charge  which  I 
cannot  ascertain,  but  which  unquestionably  amounts  to  many 
French  millions.  Another  of  the  new  charges,  is  an  annuity 
of  four  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  pounds  sterling,  to  be 
paid  (if  they  choose  to  keep  faith)  by  daily  payments,  for  the 
interest  of  the  first  assignats.  Have  they  ever  given  them- 
selves the  trouble  to  state  fairly  the  expence  of  the  manage- 
ment of  the  church  lands  in  the  hands  of  the  municipalities, 
to  whose  care,  skill,  and  diligence,  and  that  of  their  legion 
of  unknown  under-agents,  they  have  chosen  to  commit  the 
charge  of  the  forfeited  estates,  and  the  consequence  of 
which  had  been  so  ably  pointed  out  by  the  bishop  of 
Nancy  ? 

But  it  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  on  these  obvious  heads  of 
incumbrance.  Have  they  made  out  any  clear  state  of  the 
grand  incumbrance  of  all,  I  mean  the  whole  of  the  general 
and  municipal  establishments  of  all  sorts,  and  compared  it 
with  the  regular  income  by  revenue  ?  Every  deficiency  in 
these  becomes  a  charge  on  the  confiscated  estate,  before  the 
creditor  can  plant  his  cabbages  on  an  acre  of  church  pro- 
perty. There  is  no  other  prop  than  this  confiscation  to 
keep  the  whole  state  from  tumbling  to  the  ground.  In  this 
situation  they  have  purposely  covered  all  that  they  ought  indus- 
triously to  have  cleared,  with  a  thick  fog ;  and  then,  blind- 
fold themselves,  like  bulls  that  shut  their  eyes  when  they 
push,  they  drive,  by  the  point  of  the  bayonets,  their  slaves, 


284  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

blindfolded  indeed  no  worse  than  their  lords,  to  take  their 
fictions  for  currencies,  and  to  swallow  down  paper  pills  by 
thirty-four  millions  sterling  at  a  dose.  Then  they  proudly 
lay  in  their  claim  to  a  future  credit,  on  failure  of  all  their 
past  engagements,  and  at  a  time  when  (if  in  such  a  matter 
any  thing  can  be  clear)  it  is  clear  that  the  surplus  estates 
will  never  answer  even,  the  first  of  their  mortgages,  I  mean 
that  of  the  four  hundred  million  (or  sixteen  millions  sterling) 
of  assignats.  In  all  this  procedure  I  can  discern  neither  the 
solid  sense  of  plain- dealing,  nor  the  subtle  dexterity  of  in- 
genious fraud.  The  objections  within  the  assembly  to  pull- 
ing up  the  flood-gates  for  this  inundation  of  fraud,  are  un- 
answered ;  but  they  are  thoroughly  refuted  by  an  hundred 
thousand  financiers  in  the  street.  These  are  the  numbers 
by  which  the  metaphysic  arithmeticians  compute.  These 
are  the  grand  calculations  on  which  a  philosophical  public 
credit  is  founded  in  France.  They  cannot  raise  supplies; 
but  they  can  raise  mobs.  Let  them  rejoice  in  the  applauses 
of  the  club  at  Dundee,  for  their  wisdojn  and  patriotism  in 
having  thus  applied  the  plunder  of  the  citizens  to  the  service 
of  the  state.  I  hear  of  no  address  upon  this  subject  from 
the  directors  of  the  Bank  of  England ;  though  their  appro- 
bation would  be  of  a  little  more  weight  in  the  scale  of  credit 
than  that  of  the  club  at  Dundee.  But,  to  do  justice  to  the 
club,  I  believe  the  gentlemen  who  compose  it  to  be  wiser 
than  they  appear;  that  they  will  be  less  liberal  of  their 
money  than  of  their  addresses ;  and  that  they  would  not 
give  a  dog's-ear  of  their  most  rumpled  ajid  ragged  Scotch 
paper  for  twenty  of  your  fairest  assignats. 

Early  in  this  year  the  assembly  issued  paper  to  the  amount 
of  sixteen  millions  sterling.  What  must  have  been  the  state 
into  which  the  assembly  has  brought  your  affairs,  that  the 
relief  afforded  by  so  vast  a  supply  has  been  hardly 
perceptible?     This   paper   also   felt   an   almost  immediata 


EFFECT  ON   THE  COLLECTION   OF   THE  REVENUE.  385 

depreciation  of  five  per  cent.,  which  in  little  time  came  to 
about  seven.  The  effect  of  these  asst'gnats  on  the  receipt  of 
the  revenue  is  remarkable.  Mr.  Necker  found  that  the  col- 
lectors of  the  revenue,  who  received  in  coin,  paid  the  treasury 
in  assignats.  The  collectors  made  seven  per  cent,  by  thus  re- 
ceiving in  money,  and  accounting  in  depreciated  paper.  It  was 
not  very  difficult  to  foresee  that  this  must  be  inevitable.  It  was, 
however,  not  the  less  embarrassing.  Mr.  Necker  was  obliged 
(I  believe,  for  a  considerable  part,  in  the  market  of  London) 
to  buy  gold  and  silver  for  the  mint,  which  amounted  to 
about  twelve  thousand  pounds  above  the  value  of  the  com- 
modity gained.  That  minister  was  of  opinion,  that  what- 
ever their  secret  nutritive  virtue  might  be,  the  state  could 
not  live  upon  asst'gnats  alone;  that  some  real  silver  was 
necessary,  particularly  for  the  satisfaction  of  those,  who 
having  iron  in  their  hands,  were  not  likely  to  distinguish 
themselves  for  patience,  when  they  should  perceive  that 
whilst  an  encrease  of  pay  was  held  out  to  them  in  real 
money,  it  was  again  to  be  fraudulently  drawn  back  by  de- 
preciated paper.  The  minister,  in  this  very  natural  distress, 
applied  to  the  assembly,  that  they  should  order  the  collectors 
to  pay  in  specie  what  in  specie  they  had  received.  It  could 
not  escape  him,  that  if  the  treasury  paid  three  per  cent,  for  the 
use  of  a  currency,  which  should  be  returned  seven  per  cent, 
worse  than  the  minister  issued  it,  such  a  dealing  could  not 
very  greatly  tend  to  enrich  the  publick.  The  assembly  took 
no  notice  of  his  recommendation.  They  were  in  this 
dilemma ;  if  they  continued  to  receive  the  assignats,  each 
must  become  an  alien  to  their  treasury  :  if  the  treasury 
should  refuse  those  paper  amulets,  or  should  discountenance 
them  in  any  degree,  they  must  destroy  the  credit  of  their 
sole  resource.  They  seem  then  to  have  made  their  option ; 
and  to  have  given  some  sort  of  credit  to  their  paper  by 
taking  it  themselves;   at  the  same  time  in  their  speeches 


285  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

they  made  a  sort  of  swaggering  declaration,  something,  I 
rather  think,  above  legislative  competence;  that  is,  that 
there  is  no  difference  in  value  between  metallic  money  and 
their  assignats.  This  was  a  good  stout  proof  article  of 
faith,  pronounced  under  an  anathema,  by  the  venerable 
fathers  of  this  philosophic  synod.  Cr^^a/ who  will — certainly 
XiOX  JudcEus  Apella. 

A  noble  indignation  rises  in  the  minds  of  your  popular 
leaders,  on  hearing  the  magic  lanthom  in  their  shew  of 
finance  compared  to  the  fraudulent  exhibitions  of  Mr.  Law. 
They  cannot  bear  to  hear  the  sands  of  his  Mississippi  com- 
pared with  the  rock  of  the  church,  on  which  they  build  their 
system.  Pray  let  them  suppress  this  glorious  spirit,  until 
they  shew  to  the  world  what  piece  of  solid  ground  there  is 
for  their  assignats,  which  they  have  not  pre-occupied  by 
other  charges.  They  do  injustice  to  that  great,  mother 
fraud,  to  compare  it  with  their  degenerate  imitation.  It  is 
not  true,  that  Law  built  solely  on  a  speculation  concerning 
the  Mississippi.  He  added  the  East  India  trade ;  he  added 
the  African  trade;  he  added  the  farms  of  all  the  farmed 
revenue  of  France.  All  these  together  unquestionably  could 
not  support  the  structure  which  the  public  enthusiasm,  not 
he,  chose  to  build  upon  these  bases.  But  these  were,  how- 
ever, in  comparison,  generous  delusions.  They  supposed, 
and  they  aimed  at,  an  increase  of  the  commerce  of  France, 
They  opened  to  it  the  whole  range  of  the  two  hemispheres. 
They  did  not  think  of  feeding  France  from  its  own  sub- 
stance. A  grand  imagination  found  in  this  flight  of  com- 
merce something  to  captivate.  It  was  wherewithal  to  dazzle 
the  eye  of  an  eagle.  It  was  not  made  to  entice  the  smell  of 
a  mole,  nuzzling  and  bur}'ing  himself  in  his  mother  earth,  as 
yours  is.  Men  were  not  then  quite  shrunk  from  their  natural 
dimensions  by  a  degrading  and  sordid  philosophy,  and 
fitted  for  low  and  vulgar  deceptions.    Above  all  remember, 


WEAKNESS  OF    THE   FINANCIAL   POLICY.         287 

that  in  imposing  on  the  imagination,  the  then  managers  of 
the  system  made  a  compliment  to  the  freedom  of  men.  In 
their  fraud  there  was  no  mixture  of  force.  This  was  reserved 
to  our  time,  to  quench  the  httle  glimmerings  of  reason 
which  might  break  in  upon  the  solid  darkness  of  this 
enlightened  age. 

On  recollection,  I  have  said  nothing  of  a  scheme  of 
finance  which  may  be  urged  in  favour  of  the  abilities  of 
these  gentlemen,  and  which  has  been  introduced  with  great 
pomp,  though  not  yet  finally  adopted  in  the  national  as- 
sembly. It  comes  with  something  solid  in  aid  of  the  credit 
of  the  paper  circulation;  and  much  has  been  said  of  its 
utility  and  its  elegance.  I  mean  the  project  for  coining  into 
money  the  bells  of  the  suppressed  churches.  This  is  their 
alchymy.  There  are  some  foUies  which  baffle  argument; 
which  go  beyond  ridicule ;  and  which  excite  no  feeling  in  us 
but  disgust ;  and  therefore  I  say  no  more  upon  it. 

It  is  as  little  worth  remarking  any  farther  upon  all  their 
drawing  and  re-drawing,  on  their  circulation  for  putting  oif 
the  evil  day,  on  the  play  between  the  treasury  and  the  Cai'sse 
d'  Escompte,  and  on  all  these  old  exploded  contrivances  of 
mercantile  fraud,  now  exalted  into  policy  of  state.  The 
revenue  will  not  be  trifled  with.  The  prattling  about  the 
rights  of  men  will  not  be  accepted  in  payment  for  a  biscuit 
or  a  pound  of  gunpowder.  Here  then  the  metaphysicians 
descend  from  their  airy  speculations,  and  faithfully  follow 
examples.  What  examples  ?  the  examples  of  bankrupts. 
But,  defeated,  baffled,  disgraced,  when  their  breath,  their 
strength,  their  inventions,  their  fancies  desert  them,  their 
confidence  still  maintains  its  ground.  In  the  manifest  failure 
of  their  abilities  they  take  credit  for  their  benevolence. 
When  the  revenue  disappears  in  their  hands,  they  have  the 
presumption,  in  some  of  their  late  proceedings,  to  value 
themselves  on  the  relief  given  to  the  people.  .  They  did  not 


288  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

relieve  the  people.  If  they  entertained  such  intentions,  why 
did  they  order  the  obnoxious  taxes  to  be  paid?  The  people 
relieved  themselves  in  spite  of  the  assembly. 

But  waiving  all  discussion  on  the  parties  who  may  claim 
the  merit  of  this  fallacious  relief,  has  there  been,  in  effect, 
any  relief  to  the  people,  in  any  form  ?  Mr.  Bailly,  one  of  the 
grand  agents  of  paper  circulation,  lets  you  into  the  nature  of 
this  relief.  His  speech  to  the  National  Assembly  contained 
an  high  and  laboured  panegyric  on  the  inhabitants  of  Paris 
for  the  constancy  and  unbroken  resolution  with  which  they 
have  borne  their  distress  and  misery.  A  fine  picture  of 
public  felicity !  What  1  great  courage  and  unconquerable 
firmness  of  mind  to  endure  benefits,  and  sustain  redress? 
One  would  think  from  the  speech  of  this  learned  Lord 
Mayor,  that  the  Parisians,  for  this  twelvemonth  past,  had 
been  suffering  the  straits  of  some  dreadful  blockade;  that 
Henry  the  Fourth  had  been  stopping  up  the  avenues  to 
their  supply,  and  SuUy  thundering  with  his  ordnance  at  the 
gates  of  Paris;  when  in  reality  they  are  besieged  by  no 
other  enemies  than  their  own  madness  and  folly,  their  own 
credulity  and  perverseness.  But  Mr.  Bailly  will  sooner 
thaw  the  eternal  ice  of  his  atlantic  regions,  than  restore  the 
central  heat  to  Paris,  whilst  it  remains  *  smitten  with  the 
cold,  dry,  petrifick  mace '  of  a  false  and  unfeeling  philo- 
sophy. Some  time  after  this  speech,  that  is,  on  the  thir- 
teenth of  last  August,  the  same  magistrate,  giving  an  account 
of  his  government  at  the  bar  of  the  same  assembly,  ex- 
presses himself  as  follows:  'In  the  month  of  July  1789,' 
(the  period  of  everlasting  commemoration)  '  the  finances  of 
the  city  of  Paris  were  ye/  in  good  order ;  the  expenditure 
was  counterbalanced  by  the  receipt,  and  she  had  at  that 
time  a  million  (forty  thousand  pounds  sterling)  in  bank. 
The  expences  which  she  has  been  constrained  to  incur 
subsequent  to   the   revolution^   amount    to    2,500,000   livres. 


PRINCIPLE   OF  PUBLIC   BURDENS.  289 

From  these  expences,  and  the  great  falling  off  in  the  pro- 
duct of  the  free  gifts,  not  only  a  momentary  but  a  total  want 
of  money  has  taken  place.'  This  is  the  Paris  upon  whose 
nourishment,  in  the  course  of  the  last  year,  such  immense 
sums,  drawn  from  the  vitals  of  all  France,  have  been  ex- 
pended !  As  long  as  Paris  stands  in  the  place  of  antient 
Rome,  so  long  she  will  be  maintained  by  the  subject  pro- 
vinces. It  is  an  evil  inevitably  attendant  on  the  dominion 
of  sovereign  democratic  republics.  As  it  happened  in 
Rome,  it  may  survive  that  republican  domination  which  gave 
rise  to  it.  In  that  case  despotism  itself  must  submit  to  the 
vices  of  popularity.  Rome,  under  her  emperors,  united  the 
evils  of  both  systems ;  and  this  unnatural  combination  was 
one  great  cause  of  her  ruin. 

To  tell  the  people  that  they  are  relieved  by  the  dilapidation 
of  their  public  estate,  is  a  cruel  and  insolent  imposition. 
Statesmen,  before  they  valued  themselves  on  the  relief  given 
to  the  people  by  the  destruction  of  their  revenue,  ought  first 
to  have  carefully  attended  to  the  solution  of  this  problem : — 
Whether  it  be  more  advantageous  to  the  people  to  pay 
considerably,  and  to  gain  in  proportion ;  or  to  gain  little  or 
nothing,  and  to  be  disburthened  of  all  contribution  ?  My 
mind  is  made  up  to  decide  in  favour  of  the  first  proposition. 
Experience  is  with  me,  and,  I  believe,  the  best  opinions 
also.  To  keep  a  balance  between  the  power  of  acquisition 
on  the  part  of  the  subject,  and  the  demands  he  is  to  answer 
on  the  part  of  the  state,  is  a  fundamental  part  of  the  skill  of 
a  true  politician.  The  means  of  acquisition  are  prior  in 
time  and  in  arrangement.  Good  order  is  the  foundation  of 
all  good  things.  To  be  enabled  to  acquire,  the  people, 
without  being  servile,  must  be  tractable  and  obedient.  The 
magistrate  must  have  his  reverence,  the  laws  their  authority. 
The  body  of  the  people  must  not  find  the  principles  of 
natural  subordination,  by   art  rooted   out    of  their  minds, 

VOL.  II.  U 


290  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

They  must  respect  that  property  of  which  they  cannot 
partake.  They  must  labour  to  obtain  what  by  labour  can 
be  obtained ;  and  when  they  find,  as  they  commonly  do,  the 
success  disproportioned  to  the  endeavour,  they  must  be 
taught  their  consolation  in  the  final  proportions  of  eternal 
justice.  Of  this  consolation,  whoever  deprives  them,  deadens 
their  industry,  and  strikes  at  the  root  of  all  acquisition  as  of 
all  conservation.  He  that  does  this  is  the  cruel  oppressor, 
the  merciless  enemy  of  the  poor  and  wretched ;  at  the  same 
time  that  by  his  wicked  speculations  he  exposes  the  fruits  of 
successful  industry,  and  the  accumulations  of  fortune,  to  the 
plunder  of  the  negligent,  the  disappointed,  and  the  un- 
prosperous. 

Too  many  of  the  financiers  by  profession  are  apt  to  see 
nothing  in  revenue,  but  banks,  and  circulations,  and  annuities 
on  lives,  and  tontines,  and  perpetual  rents,  and  all  the  small 
wares  of  the  shop.  In  a  settled  order  of  the  state,  these 
things  are  not  to  be  slighted,  nor  is  the  skill  in  them  to  be 
held  of  trivial  estimation.  They  are  good,  but  then  only 
good,  when  they  assume  the  effects  of  that  settled  order,  and 
are  built  upon  it.  But  when  men  think  that  these  beggarly 
contrivances  may  supply  a  resource  for  the  evils  which  result 
from  breaking  up  the  foundations  of  public  order,  and  from 
causing  or  suffering  the  principles  of  property  to  be  sub- 
verted, they  will,  in  the  ruin  of  their  country,  leave  a  me- 
lancholy and  lasting  monument  of  the  effect  of  preposterous 
politics,  and  presumptuous,  short-sighted,  narrow-minded 
wisdom. 

The  effects  of  the  incapacity  shewn  by  the  popular 
leaders  in  all  the  great  members  of  the  commonwealth  are 
to  be  covered  with  the  '  all-atoning  name '  of  liberty.  In 
some  people  I  see  great  liberty  indeed  ;  in  many,  if  not  in 
the  most,  an  oppressive,  degrading  servitude.     But  what  is 


TRUE  LIBERTY.  29 1 

liberty  without  wisdom,  and  without  virtue  ?  It  is  the  greatest 
of  all  possible  evils ;  for  it  is  folly,  vice,  and  madness,  with- 
out tuition  or  restraint.  Those  who  know  what  virtuous 
liberty  is,  cannot  bear  to  see  it  disgraced  by  incapable  heads, 
on  account  of  their  having  high-sounding  words  in  their 
mouths.  Grand,  swelling  sentiments  of  liberty,  I  am  sure  I 
do  not  despise.  They  warm  the  heart ;  they  enlarge  and 
liberalise  our  minds ;  they  animate  our  courage  in  a  time  of 
conflict.  Old  as  I  am,  I  read  the  fine  raptures  of  Lucan 
and  Corneille  with  pleasure.  Neither  do  I  wholly  condemn 
the  little  arts  and  devices  of  popularity.  They  facilitate  the 
carrying  of  many  points  of  moment;  they  keep  the  people 
together ;  they  refresh  the  mind  in  its  exertions ;  and  they 
diffuse  occasional  gaiety  over  the  severe  brow  of  moral 
freedom.  Every  politician  ought  to  sacrifice  to  the  graces ; 
and  to  join  compliance  with  reason.  But  in  such  an  under- 
taking as  that  in  France,  all  these  subsidary  sentiments  and 
artifices  are  of  little  avail.  To  make  a  government  requires 
no  great  prudence.  Settle  the  seat  of  power  ;  teach  obedi- 
ence ;  and  the  work  is  done.  To  give  freedom  is  still  more 
easy.  It  is  not  necessary  to  guide  ;  it  only  requires  to  let 
go  the  rein.  But  to  form  a  free  government ;  that  is,  to 
temper  together  these  opposite  elements  of  liberty  and 
restraint  in  one  consistent  work,  requires  much  thought; 
deep  reflection ;  a  sagacious,  powerful,  and  combining  mind. 
This  I  do  not  find  in  those  who  take  the  lead  in  the  national 
assembly.  Perhaps  they  are  not  so  miserably  deficient  as 
they  appear.  I  rather  believe  it.  It  would  put  them  below 
the  common  level  of  human  understanding.  But  when  the 
leaders  choose  to  make  themselves  bidders  at  an  auction  of 
popularity,  their  talents,  in  the  construction  of  the  state,  will 
be  of  no  service.  They  will  become  flatterers  instead  of 
legislators;  the  instruments,  not  the  guides  of  the  people. 
If  any   of  .them   should  happen  to  propose  a  scheme  of 

u  2 


292  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

liberty,  soberly  limited,  and  defined  with  proper  qualifica- 
tions, he  will  be  immediately  outbid  by  his  competitors,  who 
will  produce  something  more  splendidly  popular.  Suspicions 
will  be  raised  of  his  fidelity  to  his  cause.  Moderation  will 
be  stigmatized  as  the  virtue  of  cowards,  and  compromise  as 
the  prudence  of  traitors;  until,  in  hopes  of  preserving  the 
credit  which  may  enable  him  to  temper  and  moderate  on 
some  occasions,  the  popular  leader  is  obliged  to  become 
active  in  propagating  doctrines,  and  establishing  powers, 
that  will  afterwards  defeat  any  sober  purpose  at  which  he 
ultimately  might  have  aimed. 

But  am  I  so  unreasonable  as  to  see  nothing  at  all  that 
deserves  commendation  in  the  indefatigable  labours  of  this 
assembly  ?  I  do  not  deny  that  among  an  infinite  number  of 
acts  of  violence  and  folly,  some  good  may  have  been  done. 
They  who  destroy  every  thing  certainly  will  remove  some 
grievance.  They  who  make  every  thing  new,  have  a  chance 
that  they  may  establish  something  beneficial.  To  give  them 
credit  for  what  they  have  done  in  virtue  of  the  authority  they 
have  usurped,  or  which  can  excuse  them  in  the  crimes  by 
which  that  authority  has  been  acquired,  it  must  appear,  that 
the  same  things  could  not  have  been  accomplished  without 
producing  such  a  revolution.  Most  assuredly  they  might  ; 
because  almost  every  one  of  the  regulations  made  by  them, 
which  is  not  very  equivocal,  was  either  in  the  cession  of  the 
king,  voluntarily  made  at  the  meeting  of  the  states,  or  in  the 
concurrent  instructions  to  the  orders.  Some  usages  have 
been  abolished  on  just  grounds ;  but  they  were  such  that  if 
they  had  stood  as  they  were  to  all  eternity,  they  would  little 
detract  from  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  any  state. 
The  improvements  of  the  national  assembly  are  superficial; 
their  errors,  fundamental. 

Whatever  they  are,  I  wish  my  countrymen  rather  to  re- 
commend to  our  neighbours  the  example  of  the  British  con- 


ENGLISH  CONSERVATISM.  293 

stitution,  than  to  take  models  from  them  for  the  improvement 
of  our  own.  In  the  former  they  have  got  an  invaluable 
treasure.  They  are  not,  I  think,  without  some  causes  of 
apprehension  and  complaint ;  but  these  they  do  not  owe  to 
their  constitution,  but  to  their  own  conduct.  I  think  our 
happy  situation  owing  to  our  constitution ;  but  owing  to  the 
whole  of  it,  and  not  to  any  part  singly;  owing  in  a  great 
measure  to  v/hat  we  have  left  standing  in  our  several  reviews 
and  reformations,  as  well  as  to  what  we  have  altered  or  I 
superadded.  Our  people  will  find  employment  enough  for  a^ 
truly  patriotic,  free,  and  independent  spirit,  in  guarding  what 
they  possess,  from  violation.  I  would  not  exclude  alteration 
neither ;  but  even  when  I  changed,  it  should  be  to  preserve. 
I  should  be  led  to  my  remedy  by  a  great  grievance.  In 
what  I  did,  I  should  follow  the  example  of  our  ancestors.  I 
would  make  the  reparation  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  style 
of  the  building.  A  poHtic  caution,  a  guarded  circumspec- 
tion, a  moral  rather  than  a  complexional  timidity,  were 
among  the  ruling  principles  of  our  forefathers  in  their  most 
decided  conduct.  Not  being  illuminated  with  the  light  of 
which  the  gendemen  of  France  tell  us  they  have  got  so 
abundant  a  share,  they  acted  under  a  strong  impression  of 
the  ignorance  and  fallibility  of  mankind.  He  that  had  made 
them  thus  fallible,  rewarded  them  for  having  in  their  conduct 
attended  to  their  nature.  Let  us  imitate  their  caution,  if  we 
wish  to  deserve  their  fortune,  or  to  retain  their  bequests. 
Let  us  add,  if  we  please ;  but  let  us  preserve  what  they  have 
left ;  and,  standing  on  the  firm  ground  of  the  British  consti- 
tution, let  us  be  satisfied  to .  admire  rather  than  attempt  to 
follow  in  their  desperate  flights  the  aeronauts  of  France. 

I  have  told  you  candidly  my  sentiments.  I  think  they  are 
not  likely  to  alter  yours.  I  do  not  know  that  they  ought. 
You  are  young;  you  cannot  guide,  but  must  follow  the 
fortune   of  your  country.     But   hereafter  they  may  be  of 


294  REVOLUTION  IN  FRANCE. 

some  use  to  you,  in  some  future  form  which  your  common- 
wealth may  take.  In  the  present  it  can  hardly  remain;  but 
before  its  final  settlement  it  may  be  obliged  to  pass,  as  one 
of  our  poets  says,  '  through  great  varieties  of  untried  being,* 
and  in  all  its  transmigrations  to  be  purified  by  fire  and 
blood. 

I  have  little  to  recommend  my  opinions,  but  long  observa- 
tion and  much  impartiality.  They  come  from  one  who  has 
been  no  tool  of  power,  no  flatterer  of  greatness ;  and  who  in 
his  last  acts  does  not  wish  to  belye  the  tenour  of  his  Hfe. 
They  come  from  one,  almost  the  whole  of  whose  public 
exertion  has  been  a  struggle  for  the  liberty  of  others ;  from 
one  in  whose  breast  no  anger  durable  or  vehement  has  ever 
been  kindled,  but  by  what  he  considered  as  tyranny;  and 
who  snatches  from  his  share  in  the  endeavours  which  are 
used  by  good  men  to  discredit  opulent  oppression,  the  hours 
he  has  employed  on  your  aff'airs  ;  and  who  in  so  doing  per- 
suades himself  he  has  not  departed  from  his  usual  office. 
They  come  from  one  who  desires  honours,  distinctions,  and 
emoluments,  but  little,  and  who  expects  them  not  at  all; 
who  has  no  contempt  for  fame,  and  no  fear  of  obloquy ; 
who  shuns  contention,  though  he  will  hazard  an  opinion  : 
from  one  who  wishes  to  preserve  consistency;  but  who 
would  preserve  consistency  by  varying  his  means  to  secure 
the  unity  of  his  end ;  and,  when  the  equipoise  of  the  vessel 
in  which  he  sails  may  be  endangered  by  overloading  it  upon 
one  side,  is  desirous  of  carrying  the  small  weight  of  his 
reasons  to  that  which  may  preserve  its  equipoise. 

FINIS. 


NOTES. 


Page  1.  The  Revolution  in  France.  The  term  '  Revolution,'  from  its 
application  to  the  events  of  1688,  had  acquired  in  England  a  sense  exclu- 
sively favourable.  '  Revolution  principles '  meant  the  principles  of  English 
constitutional  liberty.  The  Tories  who  supported  the  Hanoverian  succes- 
sion, while  opposing  the  rest  of  the  policy  of  the  Whigs,  called  themselves 
'  Revolution  Tories.'  Hence  the  name  '  Revolution  Society '  meant  much 
the  same  as  '  Constitutional  Society.'  This  use  of  the  term  in  bonain 
partem,  which  was  still  in  vogue,  though  in  its  decline,  at  the  time  of 
the  French  Revolution,  from  that  time  disappears  from  the  English  lan- 
guage. Burke  was  at  first  unwilling  to  apply  the  term  to  a  series  of  events 
which  in  his  opinion  amounted  to  the  total  subversion  of  the  framework  of 
a  national  society,  and  was  based  on  what  he  called  '  spurious  Revolution 
principles,'  p.  19,  1.  26 :  but  custom  soon  sanctioned  its  use  in  England. 
In  France  it  had  been  in  common  use  for  forty  years,  and  had  passed  from 
a  favourable  sense  to  one  almost  legendary  and  heroic.  Thus,  on  the  use 
of  it  made  by  Barbier  in  1751,  M.  Aubertin  writes;  '  Voila  done  ce  mot  de 
"revolution"  qui  abonde  sous  la  plume  des  contemporains,  et  pour  un 
temps  illimite  prend  possession  de  notre  histoire.  Desormais,  I'idee  sinistre 
d'une  catastrophe  necessaire,  d'une  peripetie  tragique,  obsede  les  imaginations 
franfaises ;  la  vie  politique  de  notre  pays  sort  des  conditions  d'un  developpe- 
ment  normal  pour  entrer  dans  les  brusques  mouvements  et  dans  I'horreur 
mysterieuse  d'un  drame.'  L'Esprit  Public  au  XVIH®  Siecle,  p.  282.  On  the 
use  of  the  word  shortly  before  the  event,  see  Mercier,  New  Picture  of  Paris, 
ch.  3:  'Every  book  that  bore  the  ti\.\e  oi  Revolution  was  bought  up  and 
carried  away  ....  We  were  always  hearing  the  words,  "  Give  me  the 
Roman  Revolutions — the  Revolutions  of  Sweden — of  Italy;"  and  booksellers, 
in  order  to  sell  their  old  books,  printed  false  titles,  and  took  the  purchase  on 
the  credit  merely  of  the  label.' 

Eleventh  Edition,  1 791.  Within  a  few  months  after  its  first  publication, 
the  work  had  reached  this,  its  permanent  form.  Burke  made  some  alter- 
ations in  the  text  as  it  appears  in  the  first  edition,  which  will  be  noticed  so 
far  as  they  are  material.  A  few  short  annotations,  which  appear  in  editions 
subsequent  to  the  one  adopted  as  the  text,  are  printed  with  it  (see  note  to 


296  NOTES. 

p.  93,  1.  32):  but  it  does  not  appear  that  Burke,  even  if  he  penned  these, 
intended  them  for  the  press.  This  Eleventh  Edition  appeared  in  the  second 
year  of  publication.  The  circulation  of  the  work  in  Burke's  lifetime  was 
estimated  at  30,000  copies,  which  Lord  Stanhope  thinks  an  exaggeration ; 
but  as  at  the  death  of  James  Dodsley  in  1797  it  appeared  that  he  had  sold 
no  less  than  18,000,  if  we  take  into  account  the  French  and  German 
translations,  Irish  and  American  Reprints,  &c.,  it  cannot  be  a  great  one. 
There  is  a  curious  abridged  and  cheap  edition,  published  by  '  S.  J.'  in  i793> 
in  i2mo.,  for  popular  circulation,  as  an  antidote  to  the  writings  of  the 
Jacobins.  The  editor  professes  to  have  'pruned  some  little  exuberances 
of  genius  and  effusions  of  fancy  into  which  the  lively  imagination  of  the 
excellent  writer  had  sometimes  betrayed  him.' 

Argument.  Burke  says  (p.  11,  1.  17)  that  he  writes  with  very  little 
attention  to  formal  method.  This  distribution  of  the  work  into  sections 
is  only  approximative,  and  intended  to  assist  the  reader  in  marking  the 
salient  points,  and  thus  more  readily  seizing  the  drift  of  the  work.  The 
brief  headings  given  in  this  '  Argument '  only  indicate  the  thread  of  the 
thought,  by  no  means  include  all  that  hangs  upon  it.  Those  who  desire 
a  minute  analysis  can  consult  the  translations  of  Gentz  and  Dupont :  but 
such  an  analysis  tends  to  impair  the  effect  of  the  work,  which  is  essentially 
discursive  and  informal. 

P.  3,  1.  II.  a  very  young  gentleman  at  Paris.  M.  Dupont,  who  after- 
wards translated  the  work  into  French.  He  became  acquainted  with  Burke 
in  general  society  in  London,  and  visited  him  at  Beaconsfield. 

1.  15.  an  answer  was  written,  &c.  See  Burke's  Corr.  vol.  iii.  p.  102, 
This  letter  will  be  found  valuable  as  a  means  of  acquiring  a  first  and  general 
idea  of  Burke's  views.  It  bears  evidence  of  great  pains  taken  in  the  compo- 
sition. Sir  Philip  Francis,  whose  taste  was  so  much  offended  by  the  '  Re- 
flections,' thought  this  letter  '  in  point  of  writing,  much  less  exceptionable.' 

1.  16.  upon  prudential  considerations — i.e.  for  fear  of  the  letter  being 
opened,  and  the  receiver  endangered  by  the  opinions  contained  in  it.  Cp. 
p.  4,  1.  7. 

1.  20.  assigned  in  a  short  letter — which  was  then  sent  in  its  stead.  They 
appear  to  have  been  afterwards  incorporated  in  the  letter  itself  (Corr.  vol.  iii. 
pp.  103,  104). 

1.  26.  early  in  the  last  spring.  The  ''Substance  of  Mr.  Burke's  Speech  in 
the  Debate  on  the  Army  Estimates,  Feb.  9,  1790,'  published  very  soon  after, 
in  which  his  views  on  French  events  were  freely  stated,  was  followed  by  Lord 
Stanhope's  Letter  in  answer  to  it,  dated  Feb.  24,  in  which  he  says,  '  From 
the  title  of  another  pamphlet,  which  an  advertisement  in  the  papers  has 
announced  is  speedily  to  be  expected  from  you,  it  is  conjectured  that  the 
Revolution  Society  in  London  was  in  your  contemplation  when  you  made 
that  Speech,'  p.  20.  Lord  Stanhope  was  chairman  of  that  society.  The 
advertisement  was  in  the  London  Chronicle  for  Feb.  16,  1790,  and  runs  as 
follows  :  '  In  the  Press,  and  will  speedily  be  published,  Reflections  on  certain 


NOTES.  297 

Proceedings  of  the  Revolution  Society  of  the  4th  of  November,  1 789,  con- 
cerning the  Affairs  of  France.  In  a  Letter  from  Mr.  Edmund  Burke  to  a 
gentleman  in  Paris.  Printed  for  J.  Dodsley  in  Pall  Mall.'  Burke  lent  to 
Sir  Philip  Francis  on  Feb.  18,  1790,  proof  sheets  which  embraced  more  than 
one  third  of  the  entire  work  as  it  now  stands  (Corr.  vol.  iii.  p.  128),  and 
perhaps  included  the  first  two-thirds,  which  are  here  represented  as  the  First 
Part  (pp.  4-193).  Much  excitement  was  produced  by  this  advertisement. 
'  The  mere  idea  of  Mr.  Burke's  intention  soon  to  write,  gives  life  to  the 
world  of  letters.'     Public  Advertiser,  Feb.  18. 

P.  4,  1.  II.  neither  for  nor  from  any  description  of  men.  Thus  far  the 
publication  bears  a  different  character  to  those  of  the  Constitutional  and 
Revolution  Societies.  Burke,  however,  claims  throughout  the  first  part  of 
the  work  to  be  expressing  the  opinions  of  all  true  Englishmen  (p.  99). 

1.  16.  spirit  of  rational  liberty,  &c.  Cp.  the  Letter  to  Dupont,  Corr. 
vol.  iii.  p.  105  :  'You  hope  that  I  think  the  French  deserving  liberty.  I 
certainly  do.  I  certainly  think  that  all  men  who  desire  it,  deserve  it.  It  is 
not  the  reward  of  our  merit,  or  the  acquisition  of  our  industry.  It  is  our 
inheritance.  It  is  the  birthright  of  our  species.  We  cannot  forfeit  our 
right  to  it,  but  by  what  forfeits  our  title  to  the  privileges  of  our  kind — 
I  mean,  the  abuse,  or  oblivion  of  our  rational  faculties,  and  a  ferocious 
indocility  which  makes  us  prompt  to  wrong  and  violence,  destroys  our  social 
nature,  and  transforms  us  into  something  little  better  than  the  description 
of  wild  beasts.' 

1.  17.  a  permanent  body,  &c.     See  the  same  Letter,  pp.  107-113. 

1.  26.  more  clubs  than  one.  The  allusion  is  especially  to  the  Whig  club 
'Brooks's,'  of  which  Burke  became  a  member  in  1783. 

P.  5,  1.  13.  the  Constitutional  Society — seven  or  eight  years'  standing. 
Really  somewhat  more,  having  been  founded  by  Major  Cartwright  in  the 
spring  of  1 780,  'after  whole  months  of  strenuous  exertion.'  It  numbered 
among  its  members  the  Dukes  of  Norfolk  and  Richmond,  the  Earls  of 
Derby,  Effingham,  and  Selkirk,  together  with  many  other  persons  of  rank 
and  members  of  Parliament. 

1.  17.  circulation  of  many  books,  &c.  An  apologist  for  the  Society  says 
that  portions  of  the  works  of  the  old  Whig  authors,  such  as  Sidney,  Locke, 
Trenchard,  Lord  Somers,  &c.,  were  distributed  gratis  by  the  Society.  But 
the  chief  object  of  the  Society  was  to  circulate  the  writings  of  Cartwright, 
Capel  Lofft,  Jebb,  Northcote,  Sharp,  and  other  pamphleteers  of  the  day.  It 
is  to  these  that  Burke  alludes  1.  30,  in  deprecating  '  the  greater  part  of  the 
publications  circulated  by  that  Society.' 

1.  20.  booksellers  =  publishers. 

1.  22.  charitably  read — The  word  is  repeated,  by  the  figure  called  tradnc- 
tio,  in  a  contemptuous  way.  Barke  hints  that  the  books  were  not  worth 
reading,  and  were  in  fact  not  read. 

1.  25.  much  talk  of  the  lights,  &c.  Cp.  the  French  Correspondent  of  the 
St.  James's  Chronicle,  Dec.  15,  1789:  'It  is  you,  O  ye  noble  inhabitants  of 


298  NOTES. 

the  British  Isles,  who  have  set  the  example  to  my  country — it  is  our 
commerce  with  you — it  is  the  perusal  of  your  free  writhigs,  which  have 
impressed  on  our  minds  an  idea  of  the  dignity  of  man,'  &c. 

1.  28.  meliorated.  Burke  always  uses  this  (the  correct  form)  instead  of 
the  modern  '  ameliorate.' 

P.  6,  1.  20.  a  club  of  Dissenters.  Dr.  Kippis  and  Dr.  Rees  were  distin- 
guished members.  The  Society  was  established  by  dissenters,  but  for  some 
years  then  past  it  had  numbered  among  its  adherents  many  members  of  the 
Church  of  England.  Lord  Surrey,  and  the  Dukes  of  Norfolk,  Leeds, 
Richmond,  and  Manchester,  sometimes  attended  their  meetings,  together 
with  many  members  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

L  20,  of  what  denomination,  &c.  In  the  time  of  Burke  the  lines  which 
separated  dissenting  denominations  from  each  other  and  from  the  Church 
were  less  sharply  defined  than  now.  The  Unitarians  were  recognised  by 
other  denominations,  and  allowed  to  preach  in  their  meeting-houses.  Dr. 
Price  was  nominally  an  '  Independent,'  though  his  doctrines  were  Unitarian. 

1.  34.  new  members  may  have  entered.  It  is  stated  by  Lord  Stanhope  in 
his  Life  of  Pitt,  that  this  society  had  then  been  lately  '  new-modelled,'  with 
a  view  to  co-operating  with  the  French  revolutionists.  In  this  way  it  came 
to  be  a  '  Society  for  Revolutions,'  as  Burke  calls  it  at  p.  26,  1.  13. 

P.  8,  1.  12.  who  they  are — personal  abilities,  &c.  We  trace  here  Burke's 
inflexible  practice  of  connecting  measures  and  opinions  with  the  persons  who 
support  them.  Cp.  the  Letter  to  Dupont,  p.  115  :  'Never  wholly  separate 
in  your  mind  the  merits  of  any  political  question  from  the  men  who  are 
concerned  in  it.' 

1.  31.  nakedness  and  solitude  of  metaphysical  abstraction.  Perhaps  an 
echo  of  Butler : 

'He  took  her  (viz.  matter)  naked,  all  alone. 
Before  one  rag  of  form  was  on.' 

Hudibras,  Part  i.  Canto  i.  I.  561. 

1.  32.  circumstances,  &c.  One  of  the  so-called  truisms  often  insisted  on 
by  Aristotle. 

P.  9,  1.  3.  government,  as  well  as  liberty.  Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  2.  1.  18. 
By  '  government,'  Burke  means  here,  as  often  elsewhere,  a  state  or  habit  of 
political  regulation.  Burke  ends  as  well  as  begins  the  book  with  the  dis- 
tinction between  true  and  false  liberty.     See  p.  290. 

1.  4.  ten  years  ago.  After  the  fall  of  Turgot,  when  the  French  govern- 
ment was  at  its  worst. 

1.  15.  the  scene  of  the  criminals.  See  Don  Quixote,  Part  i.  ch.  22.  This 
masterpiece  seems  to  have  been  a  favourite  with  Burke.  '  Blessings  on  his 
soul,  that  first  invented  sleep,  said  Don  Sancho  Panza  the  wise  I  All  those 
blessings,  and  ten  thousand  times  more,  on  him  who  found  out  abstraction, 
personification,  and  impersonals.'     Fourth  Letter  on  Regicide  Peace. 

1.  17.  the  metaphysic  knight.  Burke  uses  with  but  little  discrimination 
the    forms   metaphysic,  metaphysical ;    ecclesiastic,   ecclesiastical ;    theatric, 


NOTES.  299 

theatrical ;  politic,  political ;  practic,  practical.  By  the  term  '  metaphysic,' 
he  alludes  to  the  Knights  freeing  the  criminals  on  the  ground  of  the  abstract 
right  to  liberty,  without  regard  to  circumstances. 

1.  19.  spirit  of  liberty  ....  wild  gas,  8cc.     Crabbe  is  frequently  indebted 
for  a  hint  to  Burke,  his  early  patron  ; 

'  I  for  that  freedom  make,  said  he,  my  prayer, 
That  suits  with  ail,  like  atmospheric  air; 


The  lighter  gas,  that  taken  in  the  frame 
The  spirit  heats,  and  sets   the  blood  on  flame,— 
Such  is  the  freedom  which  when  men  approve, 
They  know  not  what  a  dangerous  thing  they  love.' 

Crabbe,  Tales  of  the  Hall. 
1.  21.  the  fixed  air.  Then  the  scientific  term  for  carbonic  acid  gas.  The 
gas  was  discovered  by  Van  Helmont.  This  name  was  given  to  it  by  Dr. 
Black,  in  1755,  on  account  of  its  property,  discovered  by  him,  of  readily 
losing  its  elasticity,  and  fixing  itself  in  many  bodies,  particularly  those  of  a 
calcareous  kind. 

1.  22.  the  first  effervescence.  Cp.  infra  p.  187,  1.  3.  'Fixed  air'  is  con- 
tained in  great  quantity  in  fermented  liquors,  to  which  it  gives  their 
briskness. 

1.  27.  Flattery  corrupts  both  the  receiver  and  the  giver.  The  idea  is 
adapted  from  Shakespeare : 

.  .  .  .  '  It  is  twice  blessed : 

It  blesseth  him  that  gives,  and  him  that  takes.' 

Merch.  of  Ven.,  Act  iv.  sc.  I. 
Flattery;  adulation.    Intended  to  express  a  diiTerence  between  this  vice  as 
a  private  and  as  a  public  practice. 

1.31.  hoiv  it  had  been  combined  with  government,  &c.     The  Second  Part 
(p.  193  to  end)  is  here  anticipated. 
1.  34.  5'o/!c?;Vy  =  stability. 

P.  10,  1.  5.  do  what  they  please.  'Mais  la  liberty  politique  ne  consiste 
point  a  faire  ce  que  Ton  veut  ....  La  liberte  ne  pent  consister  qu'a 
pouvoir  faire  ce  que  I'on  doit  vouloir.'     De  I'Esprit  des  Lois,  Liv.  xi.  ch.  3. 

1.  9.  liberty  .  .  .is  power.  '  On  a  confondu  le  pouvoir  du  peuple  avec  la 
liberte  du  peuple.'  Id.  ch.  2.  In  France,  says  M.  Miguet  candidly,  the  love 
of  liberty  is  equivalent  to  the  love  of  power. 

1.  13.  those  who  appear  the  most  stirring,  &c.  It  was  believed  that  the 
Duke  of  Orleans  was  the  prime  mover,  although  he  did  not  take  the  most 
active  part  in  the  scene. 

1.  19.  on  my  coming  to  town — for  the  winter  season  of  1789-90. 

an  account  of  these  proceedings.    '  A  Discourse  on  the  Love  of  our  Country, 

delivered  on  Nov.  4,  1789.  at  the  Meeting  House  in  the  Old  Jewry  to  the 

Society  for  commemorating   the  Revolution    in  Great   Britain.      With  an 

Appendix   containing   the  Report  of  the   Committee  of  the  Society;    an 


300  NOTES. 

account  of  the  population  of  France ;  and  the  Declaration  of  Right  by  the 
National  Assembly  of  France.  Third  Edition,  with  additions  to  the  Appendix, 
containing  communications  from  France  occasioned  by  the  Congratulatory 
Address  of  the  Revolution  Society  to  the  National  Assembly  of  France,  with 
the  Answers  to  them.  By  Richard  Price,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.,'  &c.  The 
Letter  of  the  Duke  of  Rochefoucauld  is  an  informal  one  addressed  to  Dr. 
Price,  and  dated  Dec.  2, 1789.  That  of  the  Archbishop  of  Aix  (as  President 
of  the  National  Assembly)  formally  addressed  to  Lord  Stanhope,  as  Chairman 
of  the  Society,  and  dated  Dec.  5,  1 789,  was  accompanied  by  an  official  ex- 
tract from  the  Proces  Verbal  of  the  Assembly,  dated  Nov.  25,  1789.  The 
appendix  also  contains  Resolutions  of  thanks  sent  to  the  Society  from  Dijon 
and  Lille,  together  with  the  Answers  transmitted  to  them  by  the  Society. 

P.  11,  1.  I.  prudence  0/  an  higher  order.  Burke  always  recognizes  a 
good  and  bad  form  of  moral  habits  and  feelings,  without  much  reference  to 
their  names  and  common  acceptations.  Hence  such  striking  expressions  as 
'  false,  reptile  prudence,'  '  fortitude  of  rational  fear,'  Sec,  abound  in  his 
writings. 

U.  3,  4.  feeble  enough — infancy  slill  more  feeble.  Burke  was  too  much 
disposed  to  refer  the  Revolution  to  the  spirit  of  contemporary  Jacobinism  as 
a  prime  cause.  Such  a  spirit  may  help,  but  it  can  never  originate,  much  less 
carry  into  effect,  similar  convulsions,  which  always  have  powerful  material 
causes.  There  was  much  Jacobinism  in  England ;  more  than  we  can  now 
understand.  One  fifth  of  the  active  political  forces  of  this  country  were 
classed  by  Burke  as  Jacobin ;  but  there  was  no  such  irresistible  series  of 
material  causes  as,  in  the  face  of  material  resistance,  produced  the  explosion 
of  1789. 

L  5.  heap  mountains  on  mountains.     Cp.  Waller,  On  the  Head  of  a  Stag  : 
'  Heav'n  with  these  Engines  had  been  scal'd, 
When  mountains  heap'd  on  mountains  fail'd. 
The  allusion  is  to  the  Titans.     See  Virg.  Georg.  i.  281. 

\.  7-  our  neighbour's  house  onjire,  &c. 

'  Nam  tua  res  agitur,  paries  quum  proximus  ardet.' 

Hor.  Ep.  Lib.  i.  xviii.  84. 
See  the  idea  developed  in  Burke's  justification  of  interference  in  the  affairs  of 
France,  grounded  on  the  '  law  of  civil  vicinity,'  in  the  First  Letter  on  a 
Regicide  Peace — '  Vicini  vicinorum  facta  praesumuntur  scire — this  principle, 
which,  like  the  rest,  is  as  true  of  nations  as  of  individual  men,  has  bestowed 
on  the  grand  vicinage  of  Europe  a  right  to  know,  and  a  right  to  prevent, 
any  capital  innovation  which  may  amount  to  the  erection  of  a  dangerous 
nuisance.'  The  politicians  of  France  had  denied  such  a  right,  on  the 
abstract  principle  that  to  every  nation  belongs  the  unmolested  regulation  of 
its  domestic  affairs. 

1.  16.  freedom  of  epistolary  intercourse;  little  attention  to  formal  method. 
'  The  arrangement  of  his  work  is  as  singular  as  the  matter.  Availing  him- 
self of  all  the  privileges  of  epistolary  effusion,  in  their  utmost  latitude  aod 


NOTES.  301 

laxity,  he  interrupts,  dismisses,  and  resumes  arguments  at  pleasure.  His 
subject  is  as  extensive  as  political  science — his  allusions  and  excursions  reach 
almost  every  region  of  human  knowledge.  It  must  be  confessed,  that  in 
this  miscellaneous  and  desultory  warfare,  the  superiority  of  a  man  of  genius 
over  common  men  is  infinite.  He  can  cover  the  most  ignominious  retreat  by 
a  brilliant  allusion.  He  can  parade  his  arguments  with  masterly  generalship, 
where  they  are  strong.  He  can  escape  from  an  untenable  position  into  a 
splendid  declamation.  He  can  sap  the  most  impregnable  conviction  by 
pathos,  and  put  to  flight  a  host  of  syllogisms  with  a  sneer.  Absolved  from 
the  laws  of  vulgar  method,  he  can  advance  a  groupe  of  magnificent  horrors 
to  make  a  breach  in  our  hearts,  through  which  the  most  undisciplined  rabble 
of  arguments  may  enter  in  triumph.'     Vindiciae  Gallicae,  Preface. 

1.  22.  perhaps  of  more  than  Europe.  The  designs  of  Bonaparte,  and 
actual  events  in  Egypt,  Syria,  India,  and  the  West  Indies,  justify  this  fore- 
cast. The  Revolution  forced  on  the  independence  of  Spanish  and  Por- 
tuguese America. 

1.  26.  by  means  the  most  absurd,  &c.  Balzac  (the  earlier),  '  Aristippe  ' : 
'  Les  grands  evenements  ne  sont  pas  toujours  produits  par  de  grandes  causes. 
Les  ressorts  sont  caches,  et  les  machines  paraissent ;  et  quand  on  vient  a 
decouvrir  ces  ressorts,  on  s'etonne  de  les  voir  et  si  faibles  et  si  petits.  On 
a  honte  de  I'opinion  qu'on  en  avait  eue.'  Cp.  in  the  beginning  of  the  First 
Letter  on  a  Regicide  Peace  ;  '  It  is  often  impossible,  in  these  political 
enquiries,  to  find  any  proportion  between  the  apparent  force  of  any  moral 
causes  we  may  assign,  and  their  known  operation  ....  A  common  soldier, 
a  child,  a  girl  at  the  door  of  an  inn,  have  changed  the  face  of  fortune,  and 
almost  of  nature.'  In  that  place,  as  here,  he  is  considering  the  fact  that 
'  in  that  its  acme  of  human  prosperity  and  greatness,  in  the  high  and  palmy 
state  of  the  monarchy  of  Franee,  it  fell  to  the  ground  without  a  struggle.' 
So  Dr.  Johnson :  '  Politicians  have  long  observed,  that  the  greatest  events 
may  be  often  traced  back  to  slender  causes.  Petty  competition,  or  casual 
friendship,  the  prudence  of  a  slave,  or  the  garrulity  of  a  woman,  have  hin- 
dered or  promoted  the  most  important  schemes,  and  hastened  or  retarded 
the  revolutions  of  Empire.'     The  Rambler,  No.  141. 

P.  12,  1.  8.  Machiavelian.  The  old  adjective,  from  the  French  form 
*  Machiavel,'  then  in  use  in  England.  The  ch  is  pronounced  soft.  We 
now  say  '  Machiavelli '  and  '  Machiavellian,'  pronouncing  the  ch  hard. 

1.  10.  Dr.  Richard  Price  .  .  .  minister  of  eminence.  Now  an  old  man 
and  in  failing  health.  He  was  a  political  economist  of  some  repute,  cp. 
p.  151,  1.  6.  His  writings  procured  him  the  friendship  of  Lord  Rocking- 
ham's Whig  rival.  Lord  Shelburne,  who  wished  him  to  become  his  private 
secretary,  on  his  accession  to  office  in  1782.  By  Burke  and  his  party  Lord 
Shelburne  was  bitterly  detested.  Shelbume's  party,  minus  their  leader,  were 
now  in  power  under  Pitt :  and  hence  there  might  be  presumed  by  foreigners 
some  connexion  between  Price  and  the  English  government.  Political 
disappointment  thus  contributes  to  the  virulence  with  which  Burke  attacks 


303  NOTES. 

him.  Price  was  true  to  his  early  education,  having  been  the  son  of  a 
dissenting  minister,  and  he  was  the  friend  of  Franklin,  Turgot,  and  Howard. 
Mrs.  Chapone's  character  of  Simplicius  (Miscellanies,  Essay  I.)  is  intended 
for  him,  and  Dr.  Doran,  in  his  'Last  Journal  of  Horace  Walpo'.e,'  has 
mentioned  many  facts  highly  creditable  to  his  personal  character  and  ability. 

1.  17.  ingredient  in  the  cauldron.     Alluding  to  Macbeth,  Act  iv.  sc.  I. 

1.  33.  oracle — philippizes.  The  celebrated  expression  of  Demosthenes. 
Aesch.  in  Ctes.  p.  72- 

P.  13,  1.  4.  The  Reverend  Hugh. Peters.  Applied  derisively.  'Reverend* 
as  a  title  dates  from  some  time  after  Peters. 

1.  II.  your  league  in  France.  The  Holy  League  of  the  Catholics.  Burke 
may  have  had  in  mind  Grey's  note  on  Hudibras,  Part  i.  Canto  ii.  1.  651. 

1.  16.  pril'tics  and  the  pulpit.  Sec.  The  common  cry  of  professional  poli- 
ticians. Silence  with  regard  to  public  matters  neither  can  nor  ought  to  be 
kept  in  the  pulpits  of  a  free  nation  in  stirring  times.  '  I  abhorred  making 
the  pulpit  a  scene  for  the  venting  of  passion,  or  the  serving  of  interests.' 
Burnet,  Own  Times,  Ann.  1684.  The  practice  was  by  no  means  confined 
to  the  Revolutionists.  On  the  30th  of  January,  1 790,  the  Bishop  of  Chester 
had  preached  before  the  House  of  Peers  a  political  diatribe  full  of  violent 
invective  against  the  French  nation  and  the  National  Assembly.  The 
House  voted  him  thanks,  and  ordered  the  sermon  to  be  printed.  As 
to  the  introduction  of  politics  in  the  pulpit.  Fox  agrees  with  Burke :  '  Dr. 
Price,  in  his  sermon  on  the  anniversary  of  the  English  Revolution,  delivered 
many  noble  sentiments,  worthy  of  an  enlightened  philosopher  ....  But, 
though  I  approve  of  his  general  principles,  I  consider  his  arguments  as  unfit 
for  the  pulpit.  The  clergy,  in  their  sermons,  ought  no  more  to  handle 
political  affairs,  than  this  House  ought  to  discuss  subjects  of  morality  and 
religion.'     Speech  on  the  Test  Act,  1790. 

1.  24.  Inexperienced  in  all  its  affairs,  on  which  they  pronounce  with  so 
much  confidence.  '  Try  experiments,  as  sound  philosophers  have  done,  and 
on  them  raise  a  legislative  system!'  This  is  a  specimen  of  the  wisdom  of 
the  Rev.  Robert  Robinson,  another  of  these  political  divines;  once  famous 
as  a  Baptist  minister  at  Cambridge. 

1.  33.  The  hint  given  to  a  noble  and  reverend  lay-divine.  The  Duke  of 
Grafton,  whom  Junius  and  Burke  hid  united  in  attacking  twenty  years 
before.  He  had  lately  written  a  pamphlet  on  the  subject  of  the  Liturgy  and 
Subscription,  entitled  '  Hints  &c.,  submitted  to  the  serious  attention  of  the 
Clergy,  Nobility,  and  Gentry,  newly  assembled.'  Price  calls  it  '  a  pamphlet 
ascribed  to  a  great  name,  and  which  would  dignify  any  name.'  It  is  chiefly 
remarkable  as  having  called  forth  Bishop  Horsley's  Apology  for  the  Liturgy 
and  Clergy  of  the  Church  of  England.  Mathias  alludes  to  '  the  pious 
Grafton,'  and  his  hostility  to  the  Church,  in  his  '  Pursuits  of  Literature,' 
Dialogue  iv.  1.  191,  where  he  adds  a  note,  'See  the  Duke's  Hints — rather 
broad.'     Again  at  1.  299  : 

'With  Symonds,  and  with  Grafton's  Duke  would  vie, 
A  Dilettante  in  Divinity.' 


NOTES.  303 

Dr.  John  Symonds  was  Professor  of  Modern  History  at  Cambridge.  While 
sneering  at  '  the  lower  orders  of  people,'  for  '  sinking  into  an  enthusiasm  in 
religion  lately  revived '  (alluding  to  the  Methodists),  Price  opposed  the 
reform  of  the  Liturgy  and  Articles,  and  urged  those  who  were  dissatisfied  '  to 
set  up  a  separate  worship  for  themselves.' 

P.  14,  1.  I.  lay-divine.  The  Duke  held  Unitarian  opinions.  Besides 
some  writings  of  his  own,  he  had  done  service  to  religious  enquiry  by 
printing  for  popular  circulation  the  celebrated  recension  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament by  Griesbach. 

high  in  office  in  one  of  our  Universities.  Cp.  Junius,  Letter  xv.  The 
Duke  was  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Cambridge.  Gray's  Ode  on  his 
installation  is  well  known.  The  text  hints  at  the  impropriety  of  such  an 
office  being  held  by  a  frequenter  of  the  Unitarian  meeting-house  of  Dr. 
Disney  in  Essex  Street. 

1.  2.  to  other  lay-divines  ofranJe.  The  allusion  is  to  the  friend  and  patron 
of  Price  and  Priestly,  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne  (Earl  of  Shelburne),  who 
also  held  Unitarian  opinions. 

I.  4.  Seekers.  The  Seekers  were  a  Puritan  sect  who  professed  no  de- 
terminate form  of  religion.     Sir  Harry  Vane  was  at  their  head. 

L  5.  old  staple — as  in  Shakespeare,  =  material,  especially  used  of  woollen 
tissues.  '  Spun  into  the  primitive  staple  of  their  frame,'  Fourth  Letter  on 
Regicide  Peace.     Cp.  infra  p.  228,  1.  21. 

1.  "J.  to  improve  upon  non-conformity.     Cp.  note  vol.  i.  p.  181, 1.  6. 

1.  20.  calculating  divine.  Alluding  to  Price's  labours  as  a  political  arith- 
metician. 

1.  21.  great  preachers.  Ps.  xlviii.  v.  11.  The  repetition  of  great  is 
ironical,  alluding  to  the  rank  of  these  lay-divines. 

\.  24.  hortus  siccus.     A  collection  of  dried  plants. 

1.  25.  baron  bold.     Milton,  L'Allegro,  1.  119. 

1.  27.  this  town.  The  work  was  written  in  Burke's  house  in  Gerrard 
Street,  Soho. 

1.  28.  uniform  round  of  its  vapid  dissipations.  Alluding  to  the  London 
season,  which  at  this  date  began  late  in  the  autumn,  and  terminated  late  in 
the  spring.  Cp.  Johnson's  homily  on  the  Close  of  the  Season,  Rambler 
No.  124  (May  25,  1751). 

P.  15,  1.  I.  Mess-Johns  =  Fa.TSOT\s,  in  the  familiar  sense.  'Mess'  is  an 
archaic  corruption  of  Magister.  The  term  is  of  Scottish  origin.  Cp. 
Fergusson  (the  precursor  of  Burns),  Hollow-fair ; 

'See  there  is  Bill-Jock  and  auld  Hawkie, 
And  yonder's  Mess-John  and  auld  Nick.' 

1.  14.  Utinam  nugis,  &c.     Juv.  Sat.  iv.  150. 

1.  18.  is  almost  the  only  lawful  king,  &c.  From  the  insolent  form  of 
words  in  which  Price  says  he  would  have  congratulated  the  king  on  his 
recovery,  '  in  a  style  very  different  from  that  of  most  of  the  addresses,' 
(p.  25),  alluded  to  infra,  p.  33. 


304  NOTES. 

1.  24.  meridian  fervour  =  blaze. 

twelfth  century.  Burke  alludes  to  the  pontificate  of  Innocent  III,  TI98- 
I2i6.  Cp.  the  Abridgment  of  Eng.  Hist.  Book  iii.  chap.  8.  'At  length  the 
sentence  of  excommunication  was  fulminated  against  the  king  (John).  In 
the  same  year  the  same  sentence  was  pronounced  upon  the  Emperor  Otho^ 
and  this  daring  pope  was  not  afraid  at  once  to  drive  to  extremities  the  two 
greatest  princes  in  Europe  ....  Having  first  released  the  English  subject$ 
from  their  oath  of  allegiance,  by  an  unheard  of  presumption  he  formally 
deposed  John  from  his  throne  and  dignity ;  he  invited  the  king  of  France 
to  take  possession  of  the  forfeited  crown,'  &c.  ' 

P.  16,  1.  21.  gradually  habituated  to  it.     Cp.  infra  p.  76,  1.  5. 

1.  24.  condo  et  compono,  &c.     Hor.  Epist.  I.  I.  12. 

P.  17,  1.  17'  <^  (^  remote  period,  elective.  '  Reges  ex  nobilitate  .  .  .  su- 
munt,'  Tacitus,  Germ.  c.  7.  Bolitigbroke,  N.  Bacon,  &c.,  make  much  of 
the  fact  as  applied  to  the  Saxon  kings,  and  to  Stephen  and  John  after  the 
Conquest. 

1.  24.  and  whilst  the  legal  conditions,  &c.     Cp.  infra  p.  24.  I.  25. 

1.  29.  electoral  college.  The  collective  style  of  the  nine  Electors  to  the 
Empire.  '  College '  (collegium)  is  used  in  its  technical  sense  in  Roman 
law. 

P.  18,  1.  22.  lives  and  fortunes.  A  very  ancient  formula,  the  original 
words  of  which  survive  in  the  German  '  Mit  Gut  und  Blut.'  So  the  8th 
section  of  the  Bill  of  Rights:  'That  they  will  stand  to,  maintain,  and 
defend  their  said  Majesties  ....  with  their  lives  and  estates,  against  all 
persons  whatsoever,'  &c.  This  will  explain  the  reference  in  the  next 
sentence.  The  expression  recalls  the  once  common  '  life  and  property 
addresses '  from  public  bodies  to  the  crown. 

1.  28.  Revolution  of  1688.  It  must  be  confessed  that  the  argument 
which  Burke  here  begins,  and  sustains  with  much  force  and  ingenuity 
through  twenty  pages,  is  a  complete  failure.  Mr.  Hallam  has  refuted  it 
at  almost  every  point.  It  must  be  remembered  that  Burke  is  writing  not 
as  a  judge,  or  a  philosophical  historian,  but  as  an  advocate.  He  conceived 
that  the  constitution  would  be  endangered  by  the  tenets  of  the  Society, 
if  they  came  into  general  credit,  and  made  up  his  mind  to  lend  the  whole 
weight  of  his  authority  and  his  skill  as  a  debater  to  support  the  opposite 
views  (cp.  the  concluding  paragraph  of  the  work). 

1.  31.  confounding  all  the  three  together.  Burke,  using  the  expression 
of  Sir  Joseph  Jekyl,  says,  that  the  Revolution  of  1688  'was,  in  truth  and 
in  substance,  a  revolution  not  made,  but  prevented.'  In  the  Revolution  of 
'  forty  years  before,'  which  good  sense  and  good  faith  on  the  part  of  one 
man  might  have  prevented,  the  letter  of  our  liberties  was  insisted  on  quite 
as  strictly  as  by  the  Old  Whigs,  or  by  Burke. 

P.  19,  1.  10.  Declaration  of  Right.  Commonly  called  the  Bill  of  Rights. 
It  is  printed  in  the  Appendix  to  Professor  Stubbs's  Select  Charters,  p.  505. 
In  reading  these  pages,  it  should   never  be   forgotten  that  the  tdtimate 


NOTES.  305 

remainder  in  the  Bill  of  Rights,  after  the  failure  of  issue  of  Queen  Mary 
and  the  Princess  Anne  of  Dentiiark,  is  to  the  heirs  of  the  body  of  William 
HIMSELF.  If,  therefore,  William  had  died  leaving  a  child  by  a  second 
marriage,  an  event  distinctly  contemplated  by  the  Bill  of  Rights,  the  crown 
would  have  utterly  passed  by  this  settlement  out  of  the  English  royal 
FAMILY,  notwithstanding  that  there  were  several  other  branches  of  it  in 
existence.     After  this,  what  becomes  of  Burke's  argument  ? 

1,  II.  cornerstone.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  116,  1.  24. 

P.  20,  1.  6.  gypsey  predictions — i.  e.  ignorant,  random  utterances.  Burke 
called  the  republican  nomenclature  of  the  months  '  gipsey  jargon.' 

1.  8.  the  wisdom,  of  the  nation — i.  e.  the  collected  opinion  of  wise  poli- 
ticians. 

1.  9.  case  of  necessity — rule  of  law.  Cp.  in  the  Fragment  of  Speech  on 
the  Acts  of  Uniformity ;  '  When  tyranny  is  extreme,  and  abuses  of  govern- 
ment intolerable,  men  resort  to  the  rights  of  nature  to  shake  it  off.  When 
they  have  done  so,  the  very  same  principle  of  necessity  of  human  affairs, 
to  establish  some  other  authority,  which  shall  preserve  the  order  of  this  new 
institution,  must  be  obeyed,  until  they  grow  intolerable ;  and  you  shall  not 
be  suffered  to  plead  original  liberty  against  such  an  institution.  See  Holland, 
Switzerland.' 

1.  12.  a  small  and  temporary  deviation — regular  hereditary  succession. 
This  is  hardly  worthy  of  Burke.  Hallam  most  truly  says :  '  Our  new  line 
of  sovereigns  scarcely  ventured  to  hear  of  their  hereditary  right.  .  .  .  This 
was  the  greatest  change  that  affected  our  monarchy  by  the  fall  of  the  House 
of  Stuart.  The  laws  were  not  so  materially  altered  as  the  spirit  and  senti- 
ments of  the  people.  Hence  those  who  look  only  at  the  former  have  been 
prone  to  underrate  the  magnitude  of  this  revolution.  The  fundamental 
maxims  of  the  constitution,  both  as  they  regard  the  king  and  the  subject, 
may  seem  nearly  the  same ;  but  the  disposition  with  which  they  were 
received  and  interpreted  was  entirely  different.'  The  truth  of  this  last 
statement  is  undeniable. 

1.  16.  Privilegium  non  transit  in  exemplum,  A  maxim  of  the  Civil  law. 
'  Privilegium '  is  used  in  the  technical  sense  of  an  enactment  that  has  for  its 
object  particular  persons,  as  distinguished  from  a  public  measure.  '  C'est 
un  grand  mal,'  says  Pascal,  '  de  suivre  I'exception  au  lieu  de  la  regie.  II 
faut  etre  severe  et  contraire  a  I'exception.' 

1.  19.  its  not  being  done  at  that  time,  &c.  'The  Commons,'  says  Hallam, 
'  did  not  deny  that  the  case  was  one  of  election,  though  they  refused  to 
allow  that  the  monarchy  was  thus  rendered  perpetually  elective.' 

1.  26.  on  that  of  his  wife.  By  which,  as  Bentinck  said,  the  prince  would 
have  become  '  his  wife's  gentleman-usher.' 

1.  27.  eldest  horn  of  the  issue  ....  acknowledged  as  undoubtedly  his. 

The  allusion  is  to  the  reported  spuriousness  of  the  prince  born  in   1688. 

Until  that  unfortunate  event,  which  precipitated  the  Revolution,  the  Princess 

was  heir  presumptive  to  the  crown.     In  acquiescing  in  the  Revolution,  the 

VOL.  U.  X 


3o6 


NOTES. 


Tories  were  obliged  to  presume  the  truth  of  this  utterly  groundless  report. 
The  devolution  of  the  crown  on  the  Princess  was  so  far  admitted  by  the 
Lords  in  the  convention,  that  they  omitted  the  important  clause  which 
pronounced  the  throne  vacant,  on  its  desertion  by  James. 

1.  31.  choice  .  .  act  of  necessity.  If  this  were  really  said  in  seriousness, 
it  is  a  sophism  which  could  scarcely  mystify  an  intelligent  schoolboy.  Two 
very  different  things  are  indicated  by  the  term  '  choice.' 

P.  21,  1.  19.  to  reign  over  ws,  &c.  The  best  comment  on  this  is,  that  it 
required  a  distinct  Act  of  Parliament  (2  W.  and  M.  ch.  6)  to  enable  the 
queen  to  exercise  the  regal  power  during  the  king's  absence  from  England. 

P.  22,  1.  16.  repeating  as  from  a  rubric.  A  process  which  always  com- 
manded Burke's  respect,  in  matters  of  the  constitution.  Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  210, 
1.  24,  &c. 

P.  23,  1.  5.  limitation  of  the  crown.  In  the  technical  sense,  alluding  to 
the  succession  being  made  conditional  on  the  profession  of  Protestantism 
(see  §  9  of  the  Declaration). 

1.  10.  for  themselves  and  for  all  their  posterity  for  ever.  It  is  impossible 
to  defend  Burke  in  this  Uteral  reading  of  the  Declaration,  in  which  he 
follows  the  genuine  Tory  Swift  (Examiner,  No.  16).  This  paper  of 
Swift's  will  illustrate  the  difference  between  real  Toryism  and  the  Whig- 
Toryism  of  Bolingbroke.  The  words  '  for  ever,'  copied  from  the  Act  of 
1st  Elizabeth,  are  mere  surplusage,  as  in  the  expression  '  heirs  for  ever,' 
in  relation  to  private  property.  The  right  of  Parliament  to  regulate  the 
succession  to  the  crown  was  too  well  established  to  make  it  worth  while 
to  have  recourse  to  this  verbal  quibble.  '  The  Parliament,'  says  Sir  Thomas 
Smith  (Secretary  of  State  temp.  Elizabeth),  '  giveth  form  of  succession  to  the 
Crown.  To  be  short,  all  that  ever  the  people  of  Rome  migjit  do  either 
in  centuriatis  comitiis  or  tribunitiis,  the  same  may  be  done  by  the  Par- 
liament of  England.'  Commonwealth  of  England,  p.  77,  Ed.  1633.  Priestley 
remarked  that  Burke  had  rendered  himself,  by  denying  this  competency 
in  Parliament,  liable  to  the  charge  of  high  treason  under  an  act  framed 
by  his  own  idol,  Lord  Somers :  and  Lord  Stanhope  declared  his  intention 
of  impeaching  him  for  it.  The  right  of  binding  posterity  was  denied, 
on  general  grounds,  by  Locke,  Treatise  Concerning  Government,  Book  ii. 
ch.  viii.  n6,  to  whom  Swift  alludes  in  the  Examiner:  'Lawyers  may 
explain  this,  or  call  them  words  of  form,  as  they  please ;  and  reasoners  may 
argue  that  such  an  obligation  is  against  the  nature  of  government:  but 
a  plain  reader,  &c.' 

1.  II.  The  question  as  to  a  power  of  a  people  to  bind  their  posterity  is 
argued  and  settled  according  to  Burke's  opinion  in  a  well-known  passage  in 
Absalom  and  Achitophel. 

1.  13.  better  Whig  than  Lord  Somers,  Sec,  Note,  vol.  i.  p.  85,  1.  10. 
See  Burke's  panegyric  upon  the  '  Old  Whigs  ;*  '  They  were  not  utubratiles 
doctores,  men  who  had  studied  a  free  constitution  only  in  its  anatomy,  and 
upon   dead  systems.     They  knew  it  alive,  and  in  action.'     Burke  really 


NOTES.  307 

presumes  too  much  on  the  ignorance  of  his  readers.  The  mere  title-page 
of  Lord  Somers's  'Judgement  of  Whole  Kingdoms  and  Nations,'  which 
aflnrms  '  the  Rights  of  the  People  and  Parliament  of  Britain  to  resist  and 
deprive  their  Kings  for  evil  government,'  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  this  tirade. 
Throughout  these  pages  Burke  exhibits  the  heat  and  the  preoccupation 
of  the  advocate,  not  the  judicial  calm  of  the  critic. 

1.  18.  aided  with  the  powers.  Burke  generally  uses  with  to  express  the 
instrument.     We  now  say  'by  the  powers.'     Cp.  p.  32,  1.  2,  &c. 

1.  25.  difficult  .  .  to  give  limits  to  the  mere  abstract  competence  of  the 
supreme  power.  The  distinction  between  abstract  and  moral  competence 
had  an  important  place  in  Burke's  reasoning  on  the  American  question. 
Perimus  Ileitis.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  196,  and  see  note. 

1.  34.  house  of  lords — not  morally  competent,  &c.  '  The  legislative  can 
have  no  power  to  transfer  their  authority  of  making  laws,  and  place  it  in 
other  hands.' — '  The  house  of  lords  is  not  morally  competent  to  dissolve 
itself,  nor  to  abdicate,  if  it  would,  its  portion  in  the  legislature  of  the 
kingdom.'  These  passages  are  quoted,  the  former  from  Locke,  the  latter 
from  Bushel,  by  Grattan,  in  his  Speech  against  the  Union,  Feb.  8,  18 10. 
The  argument  is  merely  an  idle  non  possumus ;  and  on  Grattan's  deduction 
from  it,  the  verdict  of  succeeding  generations  has  been  against  it. 

P.  24,  1.  8.  constitution — constituent  parts.  The  old  '  constitutional ' 
doctrine  is  here  very  clearly  stated.  Had  Burke  lived  a  century  later, 
he  would  have  seen  that  it  completely  failed  when  it  came  to  be  generally 
applied.  No  principle  is  now  better  established  than  the  unity  and  indi- 
visibility of  national  sovereignty. 

1.  19.  not  changing  the  substance — describing  the  persons — same  force — 
equal  authority.  Burke  does  not  add  force  to  his  subtleties  by  this  parody 
of  the  Athanasian  Creed.  Yet  he  cautions  his  readers,  a  few  lines  further, 
against  getting  '  entangled  in  the  mazes  of  metaphysic  sophistry ' ! 

I,  23.  communi  sponsione  reipublicce.  The  Editor  does  not  call  to  mind 
the  phrase  as  a  quotation.  It  was  possibly  invented  by  Burke,  to  express 
his  meaning  with  the  more  weight. 

1.  28.  mazes  of  metaphysic  sophistry.  See  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  154,  I.  13. 
The  outcry  against  '  metaphysic  sophistry'  was  no  invention  of  Burke's. 
It  is  a  favourite  topic  with  Bolingbroke  and  other  pohticians  who  opposed 
the  philosophical  Whiggism  of  the  School  of  Locke. 

1.  32.  extreme  emergency.  Mr,  Hallam  says  most  truly  that  this  view, 
which  '  imagines  some  extreme  cases  of  intolerable  tyranny,  some,  as  it 
were,  lunacy  of  despotism,  as  the  only  plea  and  palliation  of  resistance,' 
is  merely  a  'pretended  modification  of  the  slavish  principles  of  absolute 
obedience.' 

P.  25,  1.  19.  states,  i.e.  the  Lords  and  Commons;  the  English  Parlia- 
ment in  its  original  form  being  an  imitation  of  the  States-General  of  France. 
Our  Liturgy  until  lately  spoke  of  'the  Three  Estates  of  the  Realm  of 

X  2 


3o8 


NOTES. 


England  assembled  in  Parliament.'     Cp.  Milton,  of  the  Assembly  in  Pan- 
demonium ; — 

'  The  bold  design 
Pleas'd  highly  those  infernal  States,  and  joy 
Sparkl'd  in  all  their  eyes.'  Par.  Lost,  ii.  3S6. 

1.  20.  organic  violecula  of  a  disbanded  people.  The  idea  is  fully  ex- 
plained in  the  First  Letter  on  Regicide  Peace ;  '  The  body  politic  of  France 
existed  in  the  majesty  of  its  throne,  in  the  dignity  of  its  nobility,  in  the 
honour  of  its  gentry,  in  the  sanctity  of  its  clergy,  in  the  reverence  of  its 
magistracy,  in  the  weight  and  consideration  due  to  its  landed  property  in 
the  several  bailliages,  in  the  respect  due  to  its  moveable  substance  repre- 
sented by  the  corporations  of  the  kingdom.  Ail  these  particular  moleculce 
united  form  the  great  mass  of  what  is  truly  the  body  politic  in  all  countries.' 

1.  34.  Some  time  after  the  conquest,  &c.  '  Five  kings  out  of  the  seven 
that  followed  William  the  Conqueror  were  usurpers,  according  at  least  to 
modem  notions '  (Hallam).  The  facts  seem  to  be  as  follows.  Even  in 
private  succession,  the  descent  of  an  inheritance  as  between  the  brother  and 
the  son  of  the  owner  was  settled  by  no  certain  rule  of  law  in  the  time 
of  Glanvil.  The  system  of  Tanistry,  which  prevailed  in  Ireland  down  to 
the  time  of  James  L,  and  under  which  the  land  descended  to  the  '  eldest 
and  most  worthy '  of  the  same  blood,  who  was  commonly  ascertained  by 
election,  was  thus  partially  in  force.  No  belter  mode,  says  Mr.  Hallam, 
could  have  been  devised  for  securing  a  perpetual  supply  of  civil  quarrels. 
The  principle  of  inheritance  per  stirpem  which  sound  policy  gradually 
established  in  private  possessions,  was  extended  by  the  lawyers  about  the 
middle  of  the  13th  century  to  the  Crown.  Edward  L  was  proclaimed 
immediately  upon  his  father's  death,  though  absent  in  Sicily.  Something 
however  of  the  old  principle  may  be  traced  in  this  proclamation,  issued 
in  his  name  by  the  guardians  of  the  realm,  where  he  asserts  the  Crown 
of  England  '  to  have  devolved  upon  him  by  hereditary  succession  and  tho 
will  of  his  nobles.'  These  last  words  were  omitted  in  the  proclamation 
of  Edward  IL ;  since  whose  time  the  Crown  has  been  absolutely  hereditary. 
The  question  was  thus  settled  at  the  period  when  the  English  constitution, 
according  to  Professor  Stubbs,  took  its  definite  and  permanent  form.  For 
illustrations  of  the  question  from  ancient  history  see  Grotius  de  Jure  Bell,  et 
Pac,  Lib.  ii.  ch.  7,  §  24. 

P.  26,  i,  2.  the  heir  per  capita — the  heir  per  stirpes.  The  distinction 
is  produced  by  taking  two  different  points  of  view ;  the  one  regarding  the 
crown  as  the  right  of  the  reigning  family,  the  other  as  the  right  of  the 
reigning  person.  In  the  first  case,  when  the  reigning  member  of  the  family 
died,  the  whole  of  the  members  of  the  family  (capita)  re-entered  into  the 
family  rights,  and  the  crown  fell  to  the  'eldest  and  most  worthy.'  In  the 
second  case,  the  crown  descended  to  the  legal  heir  or  representative  of 
the  reigning  person  {per  stirpem).  By  the  heir  per  capita,  Burke  means  the 
'eldest  and  most  worthy'  of  the  same  blood.     Elsewhere,  following  the 


NOTES.  309 

ttiodern  jurists,  he  calls  the  right  of  such  an  heir,  '  the  right  of  consan- 
guinity,' that  of  the  lineal  heir,  '  the  right  of  representation,'  from  his 
standing  in  the  place  of,  and  thus  representing,  the  former  possessor 
(Abridgment  of  Eng.  Hist.,  Book  iii.  ch.  8).  Burke  acutely  traced  the 
old  principle  of  Tanistry  in  some  of  the  details  of  the  feudal  law.  '  For  what 
is  very  singular,  and  I  take  it  otherwise  unaccountable,  a  collateral  warranty 
bound  without  any  descending  assets,  where  the  lineal  did  not,  unless  some- 
thing descended ;  and  this  subsisted  invariably  in  the  law  until  this  century ' 
(Id.,  Book  ii.  ch.  7).  Collateral  warranties  were  deprived  of  this  effect  by 
4  Ann,  ch.  16,  §  21. 

1.  6.  the  inheritable  principle  survived,  &c.  Burke  says  of  the  kings 
before  the  Conquest,  '  Very  frequent  examples  occur  where  the  son  of 
a  deceased  king,  if  under  age,  was  entirely  passed  over,  and  his  uncle  or 
some  remoter  relation  raised  to  the  Crown ;  but  there  is  not  a  single 
instance  where  the  election  has  carried  it  out  of  the  blood '  (Abr.  Eng.  Hist., 
Bk.  ii.  ch.  7). 

1.  7.  multosque  per  annos,  &c.  Virg.  Georg.  iv.  208.  The  quotation  had 
been  used  as  a  motto  to  No.  72  of  the  Spectator,  and  in  the  Dedication  to 
Bolingbroke's  Dissertation  on  Parties. 

1.  15.  take  the  deviation  .  .  .  for  the  principle.  It  was  not  in  Burke's 
plan  here  to  argue  against  the  elective  principle ;  but  in  the  Annual  Register 
for  1763,  on  the  occasion  of  the  then  impending  elections  of  a  King  of 
Poland  and  a  King  of  the  Romans,  he  says ;  '  Those  two  elective  sovereign- 
ties not  only  occasion  many  mischiefs  to  those  who  live  under  them,  but 
have  frequently  involved  a  great  part  of  Europe  in  blood  and  confusion. 
Indeed,  these  existing  examples  prove,  beyond  all  speculation,  the  infinite 
superiority,  in  every  respect,  of  hereditary  monarchy ;  since  it  is  evident, 
that  the  method  of  election  constantly  produces  all  those  intestine  divisions, 
to  which,  by  its  nature,  it  appears  so  liable,  and  also  fails  in  that  which  is 
one  of  its  principal  objects,  and  Vifhich  might  be  expected  from  it,  the 
securing  government  for  many  successions  in  the  hands  of  persons  of  extra- 
ordinary merit  and  uncommon  capacity.  We  find  by  experience,  that  those 
kingdoms,  where  the  throne  is  an  inheritance,  have  had,  in  their  series  of 
succession,  full  as  many  able  princes  to  govern  them,  as  either  Poland  or 
Germany,  which  are  elective.* 

1.  23.  dragged  the  bodies  of  our  antient  sovereigns  out  of  the  quiet  of  their 
tombs.  The  allusion  is  to  the  outrages  committed  by  the  Roundhead 
troopers  in  Winchester  Cathedral.  There  may  also  be  an  allusion  to  the 
plundering  of  the  Abbey  of  Faversham,  at  the  dissolution  of  monasteries, 
when  the  remains  of  King  Stephen  were  disinterred  and  thrown  into  the 
Swale,  for  the  sake  of  the  leaden  coffin.  Cp.  in  the  Draft  of  Letter  to 
Markham  (1770)  ;  '  My  passions  are  not  to  be  roused,  either  on  the  side  of 
partiality,  or  on  that  of  hatred,  by  those  who  lie  in  their  cold  lead,  quiet  and 
innoxious,  in  the  chapel  of  Henry,  or  the  churches  of  Windsor  Castle  or  La 
Trappe — quorum  Flaminia  tegitur  cinis  atque  Latina.' 


3IO  NOTES. 

1.  25.  attaint  and  disable  backwards.  In  the  manner  of  the  Chinese  law 
of  attainder,  by  which  its  effect  extends  to  a  man's  ancestors  though  not  to 
his  descendants. 

P.  27,  1.  2^  Statute  de  tallagio  non  concedendo — (Anno  1297).  Not 
originally  a  statute,  though  referred  to  as  such  in  the  preamble  to  the 
Petition  of  Right,  and  decided  by  the  judges  in  1637  to  be  a  Statute.  See 
Stubbs'  Select  Charters,  p.  487.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  179,  1.  2. 

1.  3,  Petition  of  Right.     See  Stubbs'  Select  Charters,  p.  505. 

1.  23.  The  law,  &c.  Burke,  as  we  might  expect,  turns  to  the  Act  of 
Settlement  without  saying  a  word  of  the  cause  which  led  to  its  being  passed, 
namely,  the  failure  of  issue,  not  of  Queen  Mary,  but  of  William  himself. 
The  final  limitation  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  was  to  William's  own  heirs :  so 
that  if  after  Mary's  death  he  had  married  some  one  else,  and  had  a  son,  the 
crown  would  have  passed  completely  out  of  the  English  royal  family. 

P.  28, 1.  7.  Stock  and  root  of  inheritance — temporary  administratrix  of  a 
power.  This  shifts  the  argument  to  a  different  position.  The  doctrines  of 
the  Revolution  Society  obviously  referred  to  the  latter  ground  of  choice. 
But  Burke  would  scarcely  have  maintained  that  the  merit  of  William  as  an 
administrator  did  not  weigh  with  the  English  nation,  when  they  associated 
him  with  Mary  on  the  throne. 

I,  13.  is  daughter,  &c.  Others  however,  nearer  in  blood,  but  of  the 
Catholic  faith,  were  passed  over  :  especially  those  of  the  Palatine  family, 
whose  ancestors  having  been  strong  assertors  of  the  Protestant  religion,  it 
was  thought  likely  that  some  of  them  might  return  to  it. 

P.  29,  1.  18.  A  few  years  ago,  &c.  Burke  commands  more  attention 
when  he  confesses  his  reason  for  all  this  deliberate  mystification.  No 
sophistry  was  ever  too  gross  for  the  public  ear;  but  the  occasion  which 
turned  Burke  for  the  time  into  a  Tory  casuist  must  have  appeared  to  him 
critical  indeed. 

P.  30,  1.  I.  export  to  you  in  illicit  bottoms.  The  allusion  is  to  the  Act  of 
Navigation.  See  vol.  i.  p.  116,  and  note.  'Bottom'  (Dutch  Bodem)  is  the 
old  technical  term  for  a  ship.  It  is  still  used  in  such  mercantile  phrases 
as  '  foreign  bottoms,'  and  survives  in  the  term  '  bottomry,'  applied  to 
the  advance  of  money  on  the  security  of  the  ship  for  the  purposes  of  the 
voyage. 

1.  14,  pledge  of  the  stability  and  perpetuity,  &c.  The  following  passage  is 
proper  to  be  quoted  here,  as  being  a  complete  expression  of  the  idea  in  the 
text,  and  at  the  same  time  the  one  which  was  selected  by  De  Quincey  as  the 
most  characteristic  passage  in  the  works  of  Burke,  from  the  literary  point  of 
view.     It  is  also  a  necessary  illustration  to  the  argument  at  p.  60,  11.  1-14. 

'  Such  are  their  ideas ;  such  their  religion  ;  and  such  their  law.  But  as  to 
our  country,  and  our  race,  as  long  as  the  well-compacted  structure  of  our 
church  and  state,  the  sanctuary,  the  holy  of  holies  of  that  ancient  law, 
defended  by  reverence,  defended  by  power,  a  fortress  at  once  and  a  temple, 
shall  stand  inviolate  on  the  brow  of  the  British  Sion — as  long  as  the  British 
monarchy,  not  more  limited  than  fenced  by  the  orders  of  the  siate,  shall,  like 


NOTES.  311 

the  proud  Keep  of  Windsor,  rising  in  the  majesty  of  proportion,  and  girt  with 
the  double  belt  of  its  kindred  and  coeval  towers — as  long  as  this  awful 
structure  shall  oversee  and  guard  the  subjected  land* — so  long  the  mounds 
and  dykes  of  the  low,  fat  Bedford  Level  will  have  nothing  to  fear  from  ail 
the  pickaxes  of  all  the  levellers  of  France.  As  long  as  out  sovereign  lord 
the  king,  and  his  faithful  subjects,  the  lords  and  commons  of  this  realm — the 
triple  cord,  which  no  man  can  break  ;  the  solemn,  sworn,  constitutional 
frank-pledge  of  this  nation ;  the  firm  guarantees  of  each  others'  being,  and 
each  others'  rights;  the  joint  and  several  securities ■f',  each  in  its  place  and 
order,  for  every  kind  and  every  quality  of  property  and  of  dignity ;  as  long 
as  these  endure,  so  long  the  Duke  of  Bedford  is  safe  ;  and  we  are  all  safe 
together — the  high,  from  the  blights  of  envy  and  the  spoliations  of  rapacity; 
the  low,  from  the  iron  hand  of  oppression  and  the  insolent  spurn  of  contempt. 
Amen  1  and  so  be  it !  and  so  it  will  be — ■ 

Dum  domus  Aeneae  Capitoli  immobile  saxum 
Accolet;    imperiumque  pater  Romanus  habebit.' 

Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord,  p.  53. 
I.  24.  It  is  common  for  them  to  dispute,  &c.  But  cp.  Hallam,  Const.  Hist, 
chap.  xiv.  '  Since  the  extinction  of  the  House  of  Stuart's  pretensions,  and 
other  events  of  the  last  half  century,  we  have  seen  those  exploded  doctrines 
of  indefeasible  hereditary  right  revived  under  another  name,  and  some  have 
been  willing  to  misrepresent  the  transactions  of  the  Revolution  and  the  Act 
of  Settlement  as  if  they  did  not  absolutely  amount  to  a  deposition  of  the 
reigning  sovereign,  and  an  election  of  a  new  dynasty  by  the  representatives 
of  the  nation  in  parliament.'  Mr.  Hallam  wi^hed  to  be  understood  as 
explicitly  affirming  (in  contradiction  of  Burke)  what  had  been  already  stated 
by  Paley  (see  Princ.  of  Moral  and  Political  Philos.  p.  411),  that  the  great 
advantage  of  the  Revolution  was  what  many  regarded  as  its  reproach,  and 
more  as  its  misfortune — that  it  broke  the  line  of  succession.  After  stating 
precisely  the  votes,  and  pointing  out  the  impossibility  of  reconciling  them 
with  such  a  construction  as  Burke's,  he  goes  on  to  say — '  It  was  only  by 
recurring  to  a  kind  of  paramount,  and  what  1  may  call  hyper-constitutional 
law,  a  mixture  of  force  and  regard  to  the  national  good,  which  is  the  best 
sanction  of  what  is  done  in  revolutions,  that  the  vote  of  the  Commons  could 
be  defended.  They  proceeded  not  by  the  stated  rules  of  the  English  govern- 
ment, but  by  the  general  rights  of  mankind.  They  looked  not  so  much  to 
Magna  Charta  as  to  the  original  compact  of  society;  and  rejected  Coke  and 
Hale  for  Hooker  and  Grotius.'  Hallam  in  effect  subscribes  to  the  criticism 
contained  in  the  3rd,  4th,  and  5th  Letters  of  Dr.  Priestley  on  this  question. 
Cp.  Grotius,  Lib.  ii.  c.  7,  §  27. 

*  The  allusion  is  obviously  to  the  striking  view  of  Windsor  Castle  and 
the  valley  of  the  Thames,  from  the  uplands  of  Buckinghamshire,  in  which 
stood  Burke's  country-house,  where  this  Letter  was  written.  There  is  a 
similar  allusion  to  the  imposing  effect  of  an  ancient  castle  in  the  Fourth 
Letter  on  a  Regicide  Peace. 

t  Cp.  p.  222,  I.  9. 


31  a  NOTES. 

1.  26.  exploded  fanatics  0/ slavery.  The  allusion  is  to  Heylin,  Filmer,  &c. 
Priestley,  who  is  followed  by  Hallam  (cp.  note  to  p.  24,  1.  32),  charges 
Burke  with  advancing  principles  equivalent  in  effect  to  those  of  passive 
obedience  and  non-resistance  (Preface  to  Letters). 

1.  31.  new  fanatics,  &c.  Rousseau  attacked  Grotius  quite  as  unreasonably 
as  Filmer  had  done.  We  may  exclaim  too  often  with  Burke,  '  One  would 
think  that  such  a  thing  as  a  medium  had  never  been  heard  of  in  the  moral 
world ! ' 

P.  31,  1.  I.  more  of  a  divine  sanction,  &c.  It  would  be  superfluous  to 
show  the  inaccuracy  of  such  a  notion. 

P.  32,  1.  9.  broken  the  original  contract — more  than  misconduct.  That 
is,  a  higher  degree  of  misconduct  than  Dr.  Price  meant  to  be  understood  by 
his  use  of  the  word.  The  argument  really  amounts  to  no  more  than  a 
criticism  of  Dr.  Price's  English. 

1.  29.  popular  representative  =  the  House  of  Commons.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p. 

53. 1-  I- 

1.  30.  the  next  great  constitutional  act — the  Act  of  Settlement,  12  and  13 
W.  Ill,  cap.  2.  '  It  was  determined,'  says  Mr.  Hallam,  '  to  accompany  this 
settlement  with  additional  securities  for  the  subject's  liberty.  The  Bill  of 
Rights  was  reckoned  hasty  and  defective  :  some  matters  of  great  importance 
had  been  omitted,  and  in  the  twelve  years  which  had  since  elapsed,  new 
abuses  had  called  for  new  remedies.'  One  of  these  abuses  was  the  number 
of  placemen  and  pensioners  in  the  House  (cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  74.  1-  19)- 

1.  32.  no  pardon — pleadable  to  an  impeachment.  This  question  arose 
upon  the  plea  of  pardon  put  in  bar  of  prosecution  by  the  Earl  of  Danby  in 
1679,  and  resisted  with  what  Mr.  Hallam  considers  culpable  violence,  by  two 
successive  Houses  of  Commons.  It  remained  undecided  until  the  Act  of 
Settlement.  The  expressions  in  the  enacting  clause  of  this  Act,  says  Mr. 
Hallam,  'seem  tacitly  to  concede  the  Crown's  right  of  granting  a  pardon 
after  sentence  ;  which,  though  perhaps  it  could  not  be  well  distinguished  in 
point  of  law  from  a  pardon  pleadable  in  bar,  stands  on  a  very  different 
footing  with  respect  to  constitutional  policy.' 

P.  33,  1.  3.  practical  claim  of  impeachment.  Always  strongly  insisted 
upon  by  Burke  as  an  important  guarantee  of  constitutional  liberty.  Cp. 
vol.  i.  p.  65,  1.  20,  and  note. 

I.  14.  more  properly  the  servant,  &c.  The  idea  that  a  governing  func- 
tionary is  a  servant,  and  that  national  sovereignty  is  inalienable,  was  strongly 
insisted  on  by  Rousseau  in  the  'Contrat  Social'  (Liv.  ii.  ch.  i.  2).  It  is  an 
advance  on  the  Whig  doctrine,  maintained  by  Burke,  that  government 
consists  in  a  compact  between  the  king  and  people,  as  equal  contracting 
parties,  which  neither  is  at  liberty  to  break  so  long  as  its  original  conditions 
are  fulfilled.  Cp.  Selden's  Table-Talk,  head  '  Contracts.'  '  If  our  fathers 
have  lost  their  liberty,  why  may  not  we  labour  to  regain  it?'  Ans.  'We 
must  look  to  the  contract ;  if  that  be  rightly  made,  we  must  stand  to  it :  if 
once  we  grant  we  may  recede  from  contracts,  upon  any  inconveniency  that 


NOTES.  313 

may  afterwards  happen,  we  shall  have  no  bargain  kept.'  The  doctrine  of 
Dr.  Price  had  been  advocated  at  least  two  centuries  before  by  Althusius  (see 
Bayle),  who  held  'onines  reges  nihil  aliud  esse  quam  magistratus,' — 'quod 
summa  reipublicae  cujusvis  jure  sit  penes  solum  populum,'  &c.  '  Error 
pestilens,'  is  the  comment  of  Conringius,  '  et  turbando  orbi  aptus  ' ! 

1.  20.  Haec  commemoratio.  Sec.  Ter.  And.,  Act  i.  sc.  I.  1.  17.  The 
steward  Sosia,  no  longer  a  slave,  in  these  words  resents  his  master's  remind- 
ing him  of  the  change  in  his  condition.  Burke's  repartees  to  Dr.  Price, 
which  fill  up  the  rest  of  the  page,  are  in  his  most  effective  parliamentary 
style. 

P.  34,  1.  7.  Kings,  in  one  sense,  &c.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  52,  1.  27. 

1.  19.  speak  only  the  primitive  language  of  the  law.  Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  211, 
1.8. 

1.  24.  the  Justicia  of  Arragon.  See  Hallam's  account  of  Arragon.  His 
functions  did  not  differ  in  essence  from  those  of  the  Chief  Justice  of  England,  as 
divided  among  the  judges  of  the  King's  Bench,  but  practically  they  were  much 
more  extensive  and  important.  The  office  is  to  be  traced  to  the  year  1118, 
but  it  was  not  till  the  Cortes  of  1348  that  it  was  endowed  with  an  authority 
which  '  proved  eventually  a  more  adequate  barrier  against  oppression  than 
any  other  country  could  boast.'  From  that  time  he  held  his  post  for  life. 
It  was  penal  for  any  one  to  obtain  letters  from  the  king  impeding  the 
execution  of  the  justiza's  process.  See  flailam's  account  of  the  successful 
resistance  of  the  justiza  Juan  de  Cerda  to  John  I. :  'an  instance  of  judicial 
firmness  and  integrity,  to  which,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  no  country 
perhaps  in  Europe  could  offer  a  parallel.'     Middle  Ages,  chap.  iv. 

P.  35,  1.  6.  Let  these  gentlemen,  &c.  Selden  gives  as  the  original  mean- 
ing of  the  maxim  that  the  king  can  do  no  wrong,  that  '  no  process  can  be 
granted  against  him '  (at  Common  Law), 

1.  9.  positive  statute  law  which  affirms  that  he  is  not.  Burke  clearly 
alludes  to  a  provision  in  the  Act  for  attainting  the  Regicides,  12  Car.  II. 
cap.  30,  which  runs  thus:  'And  be  it  hereby  declared,  that  by  the  un- 
doubted and  fundamental  laws  of  this  kingdom,  neither  the  Peers  of  this 
realm,  nor  the  Commons,  nor  both  together  in  Parliament  or  out  of  Par- 
liament, nor  the  People  collectively  or  representatively,  nor  any  other  Persons 
whatsoever,  ever  had,  have,  hath,  or  ought  to  have,  any  coercive  power  over 
the  persons  of  the  Kings  of  this  realm.'  We  can  hardly  wonder  that  Burke 
did  not  think  fit  to  indicate  precisely  this  '  positive  statute  law.' 

1.  14.  Laws  are  commanded,  &c.  The  'inter  arma  leges  silent'  of 
Cicero. 

1.  19.  Justa  hella  quibus  necessaria.  Burke,  as  usual,  quotes  from 
memory,  '  Justa  piaque  sunt  arma,  quibus  necessaria  ;  et  necessaria,  quibus 
nulla  nisi  in  armis  spes  salutis.'  Livy,  Lib.  ix.  cap.  I.  The  passage  is 
alluded  to  by  Sidney,  and  also  in  the  famous  pamphlet  'Killing  no  Murder;' 
•His  (Cromwell's)  indeed  have  been  pious  arms,'  &c.,  p.  8. 

1.  28.  fai7it,  obscure,  &c,     Cp.  notes,  vol.  i.  p.  39,  1.  6,  and  p.  166,  1.  5. 


314  NOTES, 

P.  36,  1.  8.  a  revolution  will  be  the  very  last  resource,  &c.  '  I  confess 
that  events  in  France  have  corrected  several  opinions  which  I  previously 
held.  ...  I  can  hardly  frame  to  myself  the  condition  of  a  people,  in  which 
I  would  not  rather  desire  that  they  should  continue,  than  to  fly  to  arms,  and 
to  seek  redress  through  the  unknown  miseries  of  a  revolution.'  Fox,  Speech 
on  the  Suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  1 794. 

I.  10.  The  third  head,  &c.  On  this  Burke  does  not  expend  so  much 
useless  force.  Feeling  that  after  all  he  had  something  better  to  do  than  to 
split  hairs  with  Dr.  Price,  he  soon  pushes  on  to  the  proper  business  of  the 
book.  He  avoids  actually  denying  the  rights  of  men,  but  aUeges  that  English- 
men have  not  had  occasion  to  insist  on  them. 

P.  37,  1.  7.  They  endeavour  to  prove,  &c.  Similarly  the  Americans  had 
based  their  claims  to  liberty  on  law  and  precedent. 

II.  25,  26.  rights  of  men — rights  of  Englishmen.  'Our  ancestors,  for  the 
most  part,  took  their  stand,  not  on  a  general  theory,  but  on  the  particular 
constitution  of  the  realm.  They  asserted  the  rights,  not  of  men,  but  of 
Englishmen.'  Macaulay,  Essay  on  Mackintosh's  History  of  the  Revolution. 
Burke  however  himself  alludes  to  the  '  common  rights  of  men,'  in  distinction 
from  the  '  disputed  rights  and  privileges  of  freedom,'  in  the  Letter  to  the 
Sheriffs  of  Bristol.  And  every  Englishman  familiar  with  the  literature  of  his 
own  time  must  have  known  that  Burke  exaggerated.  The  '  rights  of  men ' 
were  a  common  Whig  topic.  Bp.  Warburton,  for  instance,  says  in  one  of 
his  Sermons  that  to  call  an  English  king  'the  Lord's  Anointed'  is  'a 
violation  of  the  rights  of  men.' 

1.  27.  other  profoundly  learned  men.  The  allusion  is  to  Coke  and  Glanvil. 
Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  179,  1.  10. 

1.  29.  general  theories.  Hooker  and  Grotius  are  alluded  to.  See  also 
Book  L  of  Selden  '  De  Jure  Naturae  et  Gentium  secundum  disciplinam 
Hebraeorum.' 

P.  38,  1.  23.  you  will  observe,  &c.  Burke  here  terminates  his  quotations 
from  the  archives  of  the  English  constitution,  and  passes  on  to  his  '  Reflec- 
tions'  on  the  French  Revolution.  He  effects  the  transition  in  three  para- 
graphs, in  which  he  contrives  to  rise,  at  once,  and  without  an  effort,  to  the 
full  '  height  of  his  great  argument.'  These  three  paragraphs,  evidently 
composed  with  great  pains,  sum  up  the  conclusions  of  the  previous  pages  as 
to  matter,  and  as  to  style  are  so  regulated  as  to  prepare  for  the  gravity  and 
force  which  characterize  the  next  section  of  the  work. 

L  24.  uniform  policy.     Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  117, 1.  21. 

1.  25.  entailed  inheritance.  '  Major  hereditas  venit  unicuique  nostrum  a 
jure  et  legibus,  quam  a  parentibus,"  is  the  well-known  motto  from  Cicero, 
prefixed  to  Coke  upon  Littleton. 

1.  26.  derived  to  us  from  our  forefathers,  to  be  transmitted  to  our  posterity, 
Tlie  spirited  lines  of  Cato  (Act  IH.)  were  familiar  to  Burke : 
'  Remember,  O  my  friends  !    the  laws,  the  rights, 
The  generous  plan  of  pow'r  deliver'd  down 


NOTES.  315 

From  age  to  age,  by  your  renown'd  forefathers 
(So  dearly  bought,  the  price  of  so  much  blood), 
O  let  it  never  perish  in  your  hands, 
But  piously  transmit  it  to  your  children.' 
1.  31.  unity,  diversity.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  197,  1.  lO. 

1.  32.  an  house  of  commons  and  a  people.  Observe  the  claim  here 
insinuated,  suggested  by  Burke's  Whiggish  theory  of  Parliament.  It  is  now 
understood  that  the  rights  of  the  House  of  Commons  are  not  distinguishable 
from,  and  are  immediately  resolvable  into  those  of  the  people. 

P.  39,  1.  2.  following  nature,  which  is  wisdom  without  reflection,  Sec.    Cp. 
infra  p.  94,  1.  26,  p.  I02,  1.  2,  &c.     So  in  the  Third   Letter  on   Regicide 
Peace ;  '  Never  was  there  a  jar  or  discord  between  genuine  sentiment  and 
sound  policy.     Never,  no,  never,  did  Nature  say  one  thing,  and  Wisdom  say 
another.'     A  literal  translation  of  Juvenal,  Sat.  xiv.  1.  321; 
'Nunquam  aliud  Natura,  aliud  Sapientia  dixit.' 
The  formula  is  borrowed  from  the  Stoic  philosophy,  so  popular  in  Rome. 
Burke  often  had  in  mind  the  description  of  his  favourite  author,  Lucan ; 
'  Hi  mores,  haec  duri  immota  Catonis 
Secta  fuit ;   servare  modum,  finemque  tenere, 
Naturamque  sequi,  patriaeque  impendere  vitam; 
Non  sibi,  sed  toti  genitum  se  credere  mundo.' 

Phars.  II.  380,  &c. 
The  Hse  Burke  makes  of  the  idea  is,  however,  a  relic  of  his  study  of 
the  Essayists.  See  the  Spectator,  No.  404.  It  occurs  more  than  once 
in  Chesterfield's  Essays  in  the  '  World.'  The  doctrine  is  well  put  by 
Beccaria  ;  'It  is  not  only  in  the  fine  arts  that  the  imitation  of  nature  is  the 
fundamental  principle ;  it  is  the  same  in  sound  policy,  which  is  no  other  than 
the  art  of  uniting  and  directing  to  the  same  end  the  natural  and  immutable 
sentiments  of  mankind.' 

1.  3.  A  spirit  of  innovation.  Burke  does  not  mean  a  spirit  of  Reform. 
'It  cannot,  at  this  time,  be  too  often  repeated— -line  upon  line;  precept 
upon  precept ;  until  it  comes  into  the  currency  of  a  proverb — to  intiovate 
is  not  to  reform.'     Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord. 

1.  4.  the  result  of  a  selfish  temper,  &c.  This  might  well  be  illustrated 
by  the  attempted  innovations  on  the  constitution  in  the  early  part  of  the 
reign  (see  vol,  i.,  passim),  and  by  the  history  of  the  Stuarts.  '  Charles  II.,' 
says  Clarendon,  '  had  in  his  nature  so  little  reverence  and  esteem  for  anti- 
quity, and  did  in  truth  so  much  contemn  old  orders,  forms,  and  institutions, 
that  the  objection  of  novelty  rather  advanced  than  obstructed  any  proposi- 
tion.' 

1.  5.  People  will  not  look  forward,  &c.  '  Vous  vivez  tout  entiers  dans  le 
moment  present;  vous  y  etes  consignes  par  une  passion  dominante:  et  tout 
ce  qui  ne  se  rapporte  pas  a  ce  moment  vous  parait  antique  et  suranne.  Enfin, 
vous  etes  tel!ement  en  votre  personne  et  de  cceur  et  d'esprit,  que,  croyant 
former  a  vous  seuls  un  point  historique,  les  ressemblances  eternelles  entre  le 


3i6 


NOTES. 


temps  et  les  hommes  ^chappent  a  votre  attention,  et  I'autorit^  de  I'exp^ 
rience  vous  semble  una  fiction,  ou  uiie  vaine  garantie  destinee  uniquemeat 
au  credit  des  vieillards.'     Madame  De  Stael,  Corinne,  liv.  xii. 

1.  12.  family  settlement — mortmain.  By  which  landed  property  is  secured 
inalienably  (subject  to  important  legal  restrictions)  in  families  and  corpora- 
tions (in  the  legal  sense)  respectively. 

1.  13.  grasped  as  in  a  kind  of  mortmain  (mortua  manus,  mainmorte). 
There  is  an  allusion  to  the  fanciful  explanation  of  the  term,  '  that  it  is  called 
mortmaine  by  resemblance  to  the  holding  of  a  man's  hand  that  is  ready  to 
die,  for  what  he  then  holdeth  he  letteth  not  go  till  he  be  dead '  (Co.  Litt. 
2  b).  The  tenure  was  really  so  called  because  it  yielded  no  service  to  the 
superior  lord. 

1.  20.  Our  political  system,  &c.  Compare  with  these  weighty  conclusions 
the  opinion  of  Bacon ;  '  Those  things  which  have  long  gone  together  are, 
as  it  were,  confederate  within  themselves.  ...  It  were  good,  therefore,  if 
men,  in  their  innovations,  would  follow  the  example  of  time  itself,  which 
indeed  innovateth  greatly,  but  quietly,  and  by  degrees  scarcely  to  be  per- 
ceived.' Essay  on  Innovations.  Cp.  Hooker,  Eccl.  Pol.,  Book  i.  ch.  10,  par. 
9,  last  clause. 

1.  24.  great  mysterious  incorporation.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  232,  1.  18. 

1.  30.  never  wholly  new,  &c.  Cp.  Introd.  to  vol.  i.  p.  xxvii.  1.  16,  &c.  Cp. 
also  the  theory  of  the  true  Social  Contract,  p.  1 13  infra. 

P.  40,  1.  7 our  sepulchres   and  our   altars.      The   germ    of  the 

argument  is  to  be  found  in  the  14th  of  South's  Posthumous  Sermons  : 
'  And  herein  does  the  admirable  wisdom  of  God  appear,  in  modelling  the 
great  economy  of  the  world,  so  uniting  public  and  private  advantages, 
that  those  affections  and  dispositions  of  mind,  that  are  most  conducible 
to  the  safety  of  government  and  society,  are  also  most  advantageous  to 
man  in  his  personal  capacity.'  The  argument  is  amplified  in  Dr.  Chalmers' 
Bridgewater  Treatise. 

1.  20.  a  nohle  freedom.  The  epithet  is  not  used  in  the  moral  sense,  but 
indicates  an  aristocratic  character.  The  image,  however,  is  not  intended  to 
degrade  but  to  elevate  the  character  of  popular  liberty. 

1.  28.  their  age.  But  see  note  to  vol,  i.  p.  74,  1.  5,  and  Arist.  Pol.,  Lib. 
ii.  c.  5. 

P.  41,  1.  6.  possessed  in  some  parts.  Sec.  Burke  carries  on  the  idea  of 
the  last  paragraph,  likening  the  mass  of  the  nation  to  a  nobleman  succeeding 
to  his  paternal  estate. 

1.  10.  very  nearly  as  good  as  could  be  unshed.  Was  it  so?  This  question 
was  much  debated  before  the  meeting  of  the  States-General.  The  Revolu- 
tionists wished  for  a  constitution,  to  which  the  privileged  classes  replied  that 
France  already  had  a  very  good  constitution,  to  which  nothing  was  wanting 
but  a  restoration  to  its  pristine  vigour.  This  paradox  is  supported  by 
Burke.  A  statesman  so  far  removed  from  suspicion  of  prejudice  as  J.  J. 
Mounier,  is  quite  of  another  opinion.     Burke  likened  the  States-General 


NOTES.  317 

to  the  English  Parliament.  Cp.  p.  25,  1.  19,  p.  32,  1.  17.  Nothing,  how- 
ever, could  be  farther  from  the  constitution  of  the  latter,  composed,  in  the 
Commons,  of  proprietors  elected  by  proprietors,  and  in  the  Lords,  of  a 
descendible  personal  magistracy:  and  never  was  a  nation  governed,  even 
temporarily,  by  a  more  absurd  constitution  than  that  of  the  revived  States- 
General.  '  Supposons,  contre  toute  vraisemblance,  que  las  ordres  separ^s 
eussent  agi  de  consent,  et  que  la  paix  n'eut  point  ete  troublee  par  leurs 
pretentions  respectives.  ils  auroient  sanctionn6  cette  monstrueuse  compo- 
sition d'etats-generaux.  Ils  auroient  decide,  qu'on  reuniroit  periodiquement 
tons  les  Franfois  ages  de  plus  de  vingt  cinq  ans,  pour  deliberer  separement, 
les  uns  comme  nobles,  les  autres  comme  plebciens,  sur  tous  les  interets  de 
I'etat,  non  seulement  dans  chaque  ville,  mais  encore  jusques  dans  le  dernier 
village,  pour  rediger  par  ecrit  leurs  demandes  et  leurs  projets,  et  les  confier 
a  des  deputes,  soumis  dans  I'assemblee  des  representans  aux  ordres  de  ceux 
qui  les  auroient  cboisis.  Ainsi  I'on  auroit  etabli  une  aristocratie  violente  et 
une  democratic  tumultueuse,  dont  la  lutte  inevitable  n'eut  pas  tarde  de 
produire  I'anarchie  et  un  bouleversement  general.'  Mounier,  De  I'influence 
attribute  aux  philosophes,  &c.,  p.  90.  Sir  P.  Francis,  in  a  letter  to  Burke, 
pointed  out  the  error  Burke  here  makes. 

1.  II.  States,  i.e.  States-General. 

1,  22.  subject  0/  compromise.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  222,  1.  14. 

1.  24,  temperaments.     Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  59,  1.  15. 

P.  42,  1.  14.  low-born  servile  wretches.  Notice  the  variation  from  an 
earlier  opinion  in  vol.  i.  p.  41,  1.  14.  The  passage  of  Rousseau  quoted  in 
the  note  to  that  place  may  be  hefe  appropriately  refuted  by  stating,  in  the 
words  of  Burke,  the  steady  policy  of  the  French  monarchy,  which  had 
subsisted,  and  even  been  strengthened,  by  the  generation  or  support  of 
republics.  The  Swiss  republics  grew  under  the  guardianship  of  the  French 
monarchy.  The  Dutch  republics  were  hatched  and  cherished  under  the 
same  incubation.  A  republican  constitution  was  afterwards,  under  the 
influence  of  France,  established  in  the  Empire,  against  the  pretensions  of  its 
chief;  and  while  the  republican  protestants  were  crushed  at  home  (cp.  note 
to  p.  13,  1.  16,  ante)  the  French  monarchs  obtained  their  final  establishment 
in  Germany  as  a  law  of  the  Empire,  by  the  treaty  of  Westphalia,  See  the 
Second  Letter  on  Regicide  Peace  (i  796). 

1.  18.  Maroon  daves.  .  Maroon  (borrowed  from  the  French  West  Indies, 
Marron)  means  a  runaway  slave. 

I.  19.  hotise  of  bondage.     Exodus,  xx.  2. 

P.  43,  L  2.  looked  to  your  neighbours  in  this  land.  But  how  impossible 
it  was,  very  properly  insists  De  Tocqueville,  to  do  as  England  had  done,  and 
gradually  to  change  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  institutions  by  practice !  By 
no  human  device  can  a  year  be  made  to  do  the  work  of  centuries.  The 
Frenchman  felt  himself  every  hour  injured  in  his  fortune,  his  comfort,  or 
his  pride,  by  some  old  law,  some  political  usage,  or  some  remnant  of  old 
power,  and  saw  within  his  reach  no  remedy  applicable  to  the  particular 


3i8 


NOTES. 


il! — for  him  the  only  alternatives  were,  to  suffer  everything,  or  to  destroy 
everything. 

1.  16.  to  overlay  iV  =  to  stifle  or  smother. 

1.  26.  never  can  remove.     Cp.  post,  pp.  289,  290. 

1.  29.  not  more  happy.     Cp.  post,  p.  120. 

1.  30.  a  smooth  and  easy  career.  This  is  putting  far  too  fair  a  face  on  the 
possibilities  of  the  crisis.  Any  power  capable  of  effectually  controlling  the 
antagonistic  interests  might  have  directed  such  a  career;  but  where  was 
such  a  power  to  be  found  ? 

P.  44,  1.  9.  All  other  nations,  &c.  Cp.  Burnet,  History  of  his  own  Time, 
vol.  i.,  on  this  characteristic  in  the  Bohemian  revolution. 

1.  II.  some  rites  .  ,  .  of  religion — severer  manners.  The  allusion  seems 
to  be  especially  to  the  English  Commonwealth. 

1.  22.  disgraced  the  tone  of  lenient  council,  &c.  i.e.  thrown  into  disfavour, 
Cp.  infra,  p.  92,  1.  2  sqq. 

its  most  potent  topics  =  the  best  arguments  in  its  favour. 

P.  45,  1.  13.  medicine  of  the  state.     Cp.  p.  74.  1-  9. 

1.  14.  They  have  seen,  &c.  Notice  the  strength  of  the  antitheses.  The 
whole  section  is  a  fine  example  of  Burke's  most  powerful  style. 

1.  28.  national  bankruptcy  the  consequence.  Coutentio.  See  note  to  vol.  i. 
p.  103, 1.  7. 

1.  32.  «/iec/«  =  descriptions  of  money  (Fr.  especes),  i.e.  gold  and  silver. 

1.  34.  hid  thetnselves  in  the  earth  from  whence  they  came.  The  germ  of 
this  dignified  figure  is  from  the  Parable  of  the  Talents.  There  is  a  pas- 
sage in  Swift's  Drapier's  Letters,  writes  Arthur  Young,  which  accounts  fully 
for  gold  and  silver  so  absolutely  disappearing  in  France ;  I  change  only 
Wood's  pence  for  assignats.  '  For  my  own  part,  I  am  already  resolved  what 
to  do;  I  have  a  pretty  good  shop  of  stuffs  and  silks,  and  instead  of  taking 
assignats,  I  intend  to  truck  with  my  neighbours,  the  butcher  and  baker, 
and  brewer,  and  the  rest,  goods  for  goods ;  and  the  little  gold  and  silver 
I  have,  I  will  keep  by  me  like  my  heart's  blood,  till  better  times ;  till  I  am 
just  ready  to  starve,  and  then  I  will  buy  assignats.'  Example  of  France  a 
Warning  to  Britain,  3rd  Edition,  p.  127.  The  louis  d'or  (20  livres)  was  at 
one  time  worth  1 800  livres  in  assignats  !  Much  gold  and  silver  was  at 
first  hoarded  in  concealment,  but  during  the  year  1 791  the  treasure  of  France 
began  to  be  imported  into  England.  The  price  of  3  per  cent.  Consols,  which 
during  the  previous  five  years  had  averaged  £75,  at  midsummer  in  that 
year  stood  at  £38. 

P.  46,  1.  8.  fresh  ruins  of  France.  The  rest  of  Europe  was  at  this  time 
under  the  extraordinary  delusion  that  France  was  really  ruined ;  in  Burke's 
words,  '  not  politically  existing.'  This  persuasion  partly  accounts  for  the 
terror  and  astonishment  which  soon  succeeded  it. 

1.  16.  the  last  stake  reserved,  &c.  Cp.  ante,  p.  36,  1.  8,  and  post,  p.  96, 
1.  II.  Burke  means  that  insurrection  and  bloodshed  are  the  extreire 
medicine  of  the  state,  and  only  to  be  used  in  the  last  resort,  when  every- 


NOTES,  319 

thing  else  has  failed.  A  similar  expression  is  put  by  Fielding  into  the 
mouth  of  Jonathan  Wild ;  '  Never  to  do  more  mischief  than  was  necessary, 
for  that  mischief  was  too  precious  a  thing  to  be  wasted.'  Cp.  Lucan,  Book 
vii. ;  '  Ne  qua  parte  sui  pereat  scelus.' 

1.  20.  their  pioneers — the  philosophers  and  economists. 

1.  24.  their  shoe  buckles.  Alluding  to  the  'patriotic  donations'  of  silver 
plate.     See  p.  273. 

<=-<?.  47,  1.  5.  often  thousand  times  greater  consequence.  See.  'They  (the 
Jacobins)  are  always  considering  the  formal  distributions  of  power  in  a  con- 
stitution; the  moral  basis  they  consider  as  nothing.  Very  different  is  my 
opinion ;  I  consider  the  moral  basis  as  everything ;  the  formal  arrangements, 
further  than  as  they  promote  the  moral  principles  of  government,  and  the 
keeping  desperately  wicked  persons  as  the  subjects  pf  laws,  and  not  the 
makers  of  them,  to  be  of  little  importance.  What  signifies  the  cutting  and 
shuffling  of  cards,  while  the  pack  still  remains  the  same?'  Fourth  Letter 
on  Regicide  Peace. 

1.21.  lay  their  ordaining  hands — promise  of  revelation.  The  allusion  is 
to  the  practice  of  the  Church  (see  Acts  ch.  viii). 

1.  27.  talents — practical  experience  in  the  state.  'Nous  n'avons  jamais 
manque  de  philosophes  et  d'orateurs,'  says  De  Sacy,  in  his  critique  on 
Rathery's  Histoire  des  Etats-Generaux;  'nous  n'avons  eu  faute  que  d'hommes 
d'etat.' 

1.  32.  those  who  will  lead,  &c.  This  canon  was  the  result  of  Burke's 
observation  of  the  English  Parliament.  Cp.  vol.  i.  note  to  p.  147,  1.  13. 
For  the  parallels  in  Greek  and  Roman  life,  see  Plato,  Rep.,  Book  vi.  p.  493, 
and  Cicero,  Rep.,  Book  ii. 

P.  48,  1.  31.  six  hundred  persons.  The  double  representation  of  the 
Tiers  Etat,  advocated  by  Sieyes  and  D'Entragues,  had  already  been  admitted 
in  the  provincial  assemblies.  It  was  now  adopted  by  Necker  with  the  view 
of  overbalancing  the  influence  of  the  privileged  orders,  and  overcoming  their 
selfish  and  impolitic  resistance  to  taxation,  and  their  general  determination 
to  thwart  the  royal  policy. 

P.  49,  1.  7.  soon  resolved  into  that  body.  The  states  met  on  the  5th  of 
May;  and  the  Third  Estate  on  the  17th  of  June,  upon  the  motion  of 
Sieyes,  constituted  itself  the  National  Assembly.  '  The  memorable  decree 
of  the  1 7th  of  June,'  says  M.  Mignet,  '  contained  the  germ  of  the  4th  of 
August.' 

1.  9.  a  very  great  proportion,  &c.  The  intervention  of  the  lawyer  in  so 
many  of  the  acts  of  civil  life,  and  the  complexity  of  the  different  bodies  of 
common  law  (coutumes),  300  in  number,  which  prevailed  in  different  parts 
of  the  country,*  always  greatly   swelled  the  numbers  of  the  profession. 

*  '  Nous  avons  en  France  plus  de  loix  que  tout  le  reste  du  monde  ensemble 
et  plus  qu'il  n'en  fauldroit  a  regler  touts  les  mondes  d'Epicurus.  Ut  olim 
flagitiis,  sic  nunc  legibus  laboramus.'     Montaigne,  Ess.,  Liv.  iii.  ch.  13. 


320  NOTES. 

'  Sous  le  regne  du  Roy  Frangois  premier  de  ce  nom,  un  Villanovanus  fit  un 
Commentaire  sur  Ptolomee,  dedans  lequel  il  disoit,  qu'en  caste  France  il  y 
avoit  plus  de  gens  de  robbe  iongue,  qu'en  toute  I'AlIemagne,  I'ltalie,  et 
I'Espagne ;  et  fcroy  certes  qu'il  disoit  vray.'  Pasquier,  Les  Recherches  de  la 
France,  Liv.  ix.  c.  38.  Montaigne,  about  the  same  time,  remarks  (Ess., 
Liv.  i.  ch.  22)  that  the  lawyers  might  be  considered  as  a  Fourth  Estate. 
As  it  was  the  lawyers  who  were  best  acquainted  with  the  wrongs  of  the 
people,  and  alone  possessed  the  knowledge  requisite  for  putting  them 
forward,  they  were  very  appropriate  representatives  of  the  people.  Burke 
has  in  mind,  of  course,  the  state  of  things  in  England,  in  which  the  landed 
gentry,  dealing  honourably  with  the  people  and  enjoying  their  sympathy 
and  confidence,  always  furnished  the  majority  of  their  representatives.  But 
how  could  he  have  supposed  that  the  French  people  would  or  could  return 
the  landowners  as  their  representatives  ? 

1.  10.  a  majority  of  the  members  who  attended.     This  cannot  be  correct. 
652  members  took  their  seats:  and  they  were  classed  as  follows: 
2     Priests. 
1 3     Gentlemen. 

1 2     Mayors  or  Consuls  of  Towns. 
162     Magistrates  of  different  tribunals. 
272     Advocates. 
16     Physicians. 
176     Merchants,  monied  men,  and  farmers* 


I.  II.  practitioners  in  the  law.  Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  182,  1.  17.  The 
remarks  of  Dr.  Ramsay  in  his  History  of  the  American  Revolution,  on  the 
share  of  the  lawyers  in  the  revolt,  are  quoted  very  appositely  in  Priestley's 
second  Letter  to  Burke,  in  answer  to  these  remarks.     See  also  vol.  i.  p.  190, 

II.  29-33. 

1.  12.  not  of  distinguished  magistrates.  The  magistrates  of  the  supreme 
courts  and  bailliages  belonged  to  the  order  of  the  Nobility,  and  were  repre- 
sented in  its  representation  to  the  number  of  28  ;  and  even  if  they  had 
been  eligible,  the  electors  of  the  Third  Estate  would  hardly  have  entrusted 
them  with  their  interests.  But  162  magistrates  of  other  tribunals  were 
among  the  representatives  of  the  Third  Estate.  'La  deputation  des  com- 
munes,' says  Mounier,  '  etait  a-peu-pres  aussi  bien  composee  qu'elle  pouvoit 
I'etre,  et  il  est  diiBcile  qu'elle  le  soit  mieux,  tant  qu'on  separera  la  repre- 
sentation des  plebeiens  de  celle  des  gentilshommes.'  Recherches  sur  les 
causes,  &c.     Vol.  i.  p.  257. 

1.  1 7.  inferior  .  .  .  members  of  the  profession.  On  the  complaints  against 
practising  lawyers  in  parliament,  and  their  exclusion  in  the  46th  of  Edward 

III,  see  Hallam,  ch.  viii.  part  3.     Cp.   the  Parliamentum   Indoctorum,  or 
lack-learning  Parliament,  of  Henry  IV.     la  Bacon's  Draught  for  a  Pro- 


NOTES.  321 

clamation  for  a  Parliament,  he  admonishes  the  electors  '  Thirdly  and  lastly, 
that  they  be  truly  sensible  not  to  disvalue  or  disparage  the  house  ....  with 
lawyers  of  mean  account  and  estimation.'  See  generally  on  this  subject, 
the  debate  in  the  Commons,  November,  1649,  in  Whitelock's  Memoirs. 

1.  18.  distinguished  exceptions.  There  were  one  or  two  advocates  of 
profound  learning  and  in  large  practice,  like  Camus.  There  were  others, 
like  Mounier  and  Malouet,  distinguished  for  the  wisdom  and  moderation  of 
their  political  views. 

1.  ■24.  saw  distinctly — all  that  was  to  follow.  Compare  with  the  para- 
graphs which  follow,  the  Thoughts  on  French  Affairs,  under  the  head 
'  Effect  of  the  Rota.'  Paine  denies  that  these  were  the  views  of  Burke  at  the 
time,  and  says  that  it  was  impossible  to  make  him  believe  that  there  would 
be  a  revolution  in  France :  his  opinion  being  that  the  French  had  neither 
spirit  to  undertake  it,  nor  fortitude  to  support  it.  This  had  been  the 
opinion  of  the  best  informed  statesmen  since  the  failure  of  Turgot.  Cp. 
note  to  p.  195, 1.  19. 

P.  50,  1.  16.  daring,  subtle,  active,  &c.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  183,  1.  11. 

1.  23.  inevitable.     See  p.  49,  1.  24. 

P.  51,  1.  4.  Supereminent  authority.  Sec. —  Contentio.  Cp.  note  to  vol.  i. 
p.  103,  1.  7. 

1.  5.  country  clowns — traders.     The  176  (note  to  p.  49,  1.  10). 

1.  7.  traders — never  known  anything  beyond  their  counting-house.  The 
Memoirs  of  the  bourgeois  Hardy,  Barbier,  and  Marais  afford  ■  valuable 
illustrations  of  the  views  of  affairs  taken  by  peaceable  men  of  useful 
and  uniform  lives,  and  evidence  that  their  ideas  were  not  bounded  by  their 
counting-house.  There  is  no  reason  to  think  that  they  were  exceptions  in 
their  class. 

1.  14.  pretty  considerable.  This  expression  has  ceased  to  be  classical  in 
England,  but  survives  in  America.  There  were  only  16  physicians  in  the 
Assembly. 

1.  15.  this  faculty  had  not,  &c.  The  French  Ana  are  full  of  gibes  upon 
the  medical  profession.  Burke  possibly  had  in  mind  the  constant  ridicule 
of  the  faculty  of  medicine  by  his  favourite  French  author,  Moliere.  Cp. 
infra,  p.  278,  1.  8. 

1.  31.  natural  landed  interest.  But  how  unreasonable  to  expect  it!  The 
natural  landed  interest  was  surely  sufficiently  represented  in  the  nobility. 

1.  32.  sure  operation  of  adequate  causes,  &c.  Burke  thought  that  the 
House  of  Commons  was  and  ought  to  be  something  very  much  more  than 
what  was  implied  in  the  vulgar  idea  of  a  '  popular  representation ;'  that  it 
contained  within  itself  a  much  more  subtle  and  artificial  combination  of 
parts  and  powers,  than  was  generally  supposed ;  and  that  it  would  task  the 
leisure  of  a  contemplative  man  to  exhibit  thoroughly  the  working  of  its 
mechanism.     See  Letter  to  a  Member  of  the  National  Assembly. 

P.  52,  1.  2.  politic  c//s//«c//on  =  political.     See  note  to  p.  9,  1.  16,  ante. 

VOL.  ir.  Y 


322  NOTES. 

1.  17.  //  cannot  escape  observation.  See  the  character  of  Mr.  Grenville, 
vol.  i.  p.  123,  and  notes. 

1.  26.  After  all,  &c.  The  defects  of  the  preceding  observations  do  not 
impair  the  justice  of  the  censure  contained  in  the  concluding  paragraph, 
which  was  amply  established  by  events.  Burke's  glance  was  often  too  rapid 
to  be  quite  exact,  but  it  was  unerring  in  its  augury  of  the  essential  bearing 
of  a  movement. 

1.  32.  dissolve  us.     Burke  writes  as  if  speaking  in  the  House. 

P.  53,  1.  2.  breakers  of  law  in  India,  &c.  See  the  Speech  on  the  Nabob 
of  Arcot's  Debts,  in  which  Paul  Benfield,  who  made  (including  himself)  no 
fewer  than  eight  members  of  Parliament,  and  others,  are  treated  in  a  rhetori- 
cal strain  of  indignant  irony  which  has  no  parallel  in  profane  literature. 

1.  18.  fools  rush  in,  &c.     Pope,  Essay  on  Criticism,  1.  625. 

1.  29.  mere  country  curates.  (Cures.)  Not  in  the  modern  sense  of  an 
assistant,  but  in  the  old  and  proper  one  of  a  beneficed  clergyman  or  his 
substitute  (vicaire).  Bailey's  dictionary  has :  Curate,  a  parson  or  vicar  of 
a  parish.  The  order  of  the  clergy  was  represented  by  48  archbishops  and 
bishops,  35  abbots  or  canons,  and  208  curates  or  parish  priests.  The  income 
of  a  beneficed  cure  averaged  £28  per  annum  :  that  of  a  vicaire,  about  half 
that  sum. 

1.  33.  hopeless  poverty.  The  Revolution,  says  Arthur  Young,  was  an  un- 
doubted benefit  to  the  lower  clergy,  who  comprised  five-sixths  of  the  whole. 
They  were  not  too  numerously  represented,  if  the  representation  were  to 
mean  anything  at  all. 

P.  54,  1.  9.  those  by  whom,  Sec.     i.e.  the  lawyers. 

1.  29.  turbulent,  discontented  men  of  quality.  These  remarks,  applying  to 
the  Duke  of  Orleans,  Mirabeau,  Talleyrand,  the  two  Lameths,  Duport,  d' Aiguil- 
lon,  de  Noailies,  &c.,  were  indirectly  aimed  at  contemporary  English  nobles 
of  the  class  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  Lord  Lansdowne,  Lord  Stanhope,  and 
Lord  Lauderdale,  who  whilst  inflated  with  exaggerated  Whig  sentiments 
of  liberty,  had  long  disavowed  the  Whig  principle  of  acting  in  connexion, 
and  effectually  ruined  the  political  power  of  the  party  to  which  they  pro- 
fessed to  belong.     Cp.  vol.  i.  pp.  86  sqq. 

P.  55,  1.  I.  to  be  attached,  &c.     Cp.  Pope,  Essay  on  Man,  iv.  361  sqq. 

1.  2.  the  first  principle  of  public  affections.  See  p.  23,  1.  16  sqq.  The 
argument  may  be  traced  in  Cic.  De  Officiis,  Lib.  i.  c.  17.  Since  Burke's 
time,  it  has  become  a  trite  commonplace.  Dr.  Blair  wrote  a  whole  sermon 
upon  it.  So  Robert  Hall ;  '  The  order  of  nature  is  ever  from  particulars 
to  generals.  As  in  the  operations  of  intellect  we  proceed  from  the  con- 
templation of  individuals  to  the  formation  of  general  abstractions,  so  in  the 
developement  of  the  passions  in  like  manner  we  advance  from  private  to 
public  affections;  from  the  love  of  parents,  brothers,  and  sisters,  to  those 
more  expanded  regards  which  embrace  the  immense  society  of  human 
kind.'     Sermon   on  Modern  Infidelity.     On   the  other  hand,  the  private 


NOTES,  .  323 

affections   are   attacked,  with   the    same  metaphysical   weapons,  but  with 
a  very  different  object,  by  Jonathan  Edwards  and  Godwin. 

1.  4.  first  link,  &c.     Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  84,  1.  9. 

1.  12.  the  then  Earl  0/ Holland.  'This  (reprieving  Lord  Goring,  and  not 
Lord  Holland)  may  be  a  caution  to  us  against  the  affectation  of  popularity, 
when  you  see  the  issue  of  it  in  this  noble  gentleman,  who  was  as  full  of 
generosity  and  courtship  to  all  sorts  of  persons,  and  readiness  to  help  the 
oppressed,  and  to  stand  for  the  rights  of  the  people,  as  any  person  of  his 
quality  in  this  nation.  Yet  this  person  was  by  the  representatives  of  the 
people  given  up  to  execution  for  treason ;  and  another  lord,  who  never 
made  profession  of  being  a  friend  to  liberty,  either  civil  or  spiritual,  and 
exceeded  the  Earl  as  much  in  his  crimes  as  he  came  short  of  him  in  his 
popularity,  the  life  of  this  lord  was  spared  by  the  people.'  (Whitelock, 
March  8,  1649.)  The  bounties  prodigally  bestowed  on  him  were  a  reward 
for  his  carrying  out  as  chief-justice  in  eyre  the  illegal  claims  made  by 
Charles  L,  in  virtue  of  the  forestal  rights  (cp.  vol.  i.  p.  9,  1.  13).  He 
became  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Parliament  party,  but  deserted  them,  and 
paid  the  penalty  with  his  life.  Hallara  charges  him  with  ingratitude  to 
both  king  and  queen. 

1.  30.  when  men  of  ratilt,  &c.  The  allusion  is  again  to  those  noblemen 
who  patronised  the  Revolution  Society. 

P.  56,  1.  9.  if  the  terror,  the  ornament  of  their  age.  Burke  perhaps  had 
in  mind  the  well-known  epitaph  of  Richelieu  (cp.  1.  34),  by  Des  Bois,  in 
which  he  is  described  as  '  Tarn  saeculi  sui  tormentum  quam  ornamentum.' 

1.  14.  compliment  made.  The  correct  phrase.  The  modern  vulgarism  to 
*  pay  a  compliment '  is  however  used  at  p.  229,  1.  32. 

1.  15.  great  bad  men.     So  Pope,  Essay  on  Man,  iv,  284; 
'  Cromwell,  damn'd  to  everlasting  fame.' 
Burke  perhaps  had  in  mind  Milton,  Par.  Lost,  ii.  5 ; 

•  Satan  exalted  sat,  by  merit  rais'd 
To  that  bad  eminence.' 

1.16.  a  favourite  poet.  Waller;  '  Panegyric  to  my  Lord  Protector.'  After 
the  Restoration,  Waller  made  a  panegyric  upon  Charles;  and  when  the 
king  satirically  remarked  that  that  on  Cromwell  was  the  better  one,  replied, 
with  witty  servility,  that  poets  succeeded  better  in  dealing  with  fiction  than 
with  truth.  Waller  was  of  kin  to  the  Protector  through  his  mother,  a  sister 
of  John  Hampden.  Burke  was  familiar  with  the  domestic  history  of  the 
Wallers  from  the  circumstance  that  his  estate  was  in  the  same  parish  as 
theirs  (Beaconsfield). 

1.  27.  destroying  angel.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  153, 1.  23. 

smote  the  country — commtinicated  to  it  the  force  and  energy,  &c.  Simi- 
larly Junius,  Feb.  6,  1 771;  'With  all  his  crimes,  he  (Cromwell)  had  the 
spirit  of  an  Englishman.  The  conduct  of  such  a  man  must  always  be  an 
exception  to  vulgar  rules.  He  had  abilities  sufficient  to  reconcile  contradic- 
tions, and  to  make  a  great  nation  at  the  same  time  unhappy  and  formidable.' 

Y  2 


324  .  NOTES. 

In  the  Letter  to  a  Member  of  the  National  Assembly  the  policy  of  Cromwell 
is  illustrated  by  his  rejecting  meaner  men  of  his  own  party,  and  choosing 
Hale  as  his  chief-justice. 

P.  57,  1.  4.  hotu  very  soon  France,  &c.  France  has  always  been  dis- 
tinguished for  the  most  elastic  internal  powers.  Burke  in  after  times  quoted 
ia  illustration  of  this  the  lines, — 

'  Per  damna,  per  caedes,  ab  ipso 
Ducit  opes  animumque  ferro.' 
1.  7.  not  slain  the  mind  in  their  country.     Mackintosh  retorts  this  digni- 
fied figure  on  the  ministers  whom  Burke  after  the  Revolution  conceived  it 
to  be  his  duty  to  support. 

1.  14.  pahy.  Fr.  paralysie,  now  generally  disused,  in  favour  of  the 
original  term  paralysis. 

1.  25.  levellers.  A  term  applied  to  the  English  Jacobins  of  the  period  of 
the  Commonwealth. 

1.  26.  load  the  ec/i/fce  =  overload.     So  Oldham,  1st  Satire  on  Jesuits; 

'  Vassals  to  every  ass  that  loads  a  throne.' 
P.  58,  1.  I.  oratorial ^ownsA.     The  spelling  is  correct. 
1.  5.  occupation  of  an  hair-dresser,  &c.     Cp.  Arist.  Pol.,  Lib.  iii.  c.  5. 
1.  14,  o/that  sophistical,  &c.     Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  130,  1.  33. 
P.  59,  1.  2.  woe  to  the  country,  Sec.     Burke's  support  of  the  Test  Act 
has  been  adduced  to  show  how  little  practical  meaning  there  was  in  this 
tirade.     The    question,    however,    here,  is    one   of  political,  not   religious 
disability.     The   term    •  religious '    (1.  5)    appears    only  to    allude    to    the 
established  church. 

1.  13.  sortition  or  rotation.  Harrington,  the  English  constitution-mongej; 
made  the  latter  an  essential  principle  in  his  scheme.  Milton,  however, 
wished  '  that  this  wheel,  or  partial  wheel  in  state,  if  it  be  possible,  might 
be  avoided,  as  having  too  much  affinity  with  the  wheel  of  fortune.'  It  will 
hardly  be  credited  that  a  practical  member  of  Parliament  and  shrewd  thinker 
like  Soame  Jenyns,  approved  the  principle  of  sortition,  and  deliberately 
proposed  to  have  an  annual  ministry  chosen  by  lot  from  30  selected  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Peers,  and  100  of  the  House  of  Commons !  See  his 
'Scheme  for  the  Coalition  of  Parties,'  1782.  Well  might  Burke  call  that 
'  one  of  the  most  critical  periods  in  our  annals '  (Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord). 
Had  the  then  proposed  parliamentary  reforms  taken  place,  Buike  thought 
that  'not  France,  but  England,  would  have  had  the  honour  of  leading 
up  the  death-dance  of  Democratic  Revolution.  Other  projects,  -exactly 
coincident  in  time  with  those,  struck  at  the  very  existence  of  the  kingdom 
under  any  constitution '  (ib.). 

1.  18.  road  to  eminence  and  power  from  obscure  condition  .  .  .  not  to  be 
made  too  easy.  There  is  here  possibly  an  allusion  to  the  preceding  genera- 
tion, and  the  career  of  men  like  Lord  Melcombe.  The  road  was  always  easy 
enough  in  England,  and  by  this  time  in  most  other  countries.  Struensee  had 
governed  Denmark.     Writers  had  busied  themselves  in  vain  to  discover  the 


NOTES.  325 

grandfather  ofl'Hopital,  On  the  day  when  the  States-General  met  in  France, 
three  out  of  eight  ministers  who  composed  the  cabinet  (Necker,  Vergennes, 
and  Sartine)  were  not  of  noble  birth. 

1.  24.  Virtue  ,  .  .  never  tried  but  by  some  difficulty — nepl  to  xa^-fraiTepov 
aUl  Kal  Ttx^V  yiverai  Koi  dperr].  Arist.  Eth.,  Lib.  ii.  c.  3.  Cp.  p.  197, 
1.  9  sqq. 

1.  2  7.  its  ability  as  well  as  its  property.  '  Jacobinism,'  wrote  Burke  several 
years  afterwards,  when  the  whole  civilised  world  was  in  affright  at  the  word, 
without  understanding  very  well  what  it  meant,  '  is  the  revolt  of  the  enter- 
prising talents  of  a  country  against  its  property.' 

P.  60,  1.  I.  the  great  masses  which  excite  envy,  &c.  Cp.  the  Letter  to  a 
Noble  Lord,  in  which  the  vast  property  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford  is  used  to 
illustrate  this  doctrine.  The  extract  given  in  a  previous  note  (to  p,  30, 
1.  14)  contains  the  substance  of  its  argument. 

1.  15.  the  power  0/ perpetuating  our  property  in  our  families,  &c.  Burke 
alludes  to  the  practice  of  family  settlements. 

I.  19.  grafts  benevolence,  &c.  Because  it  encourages  a  man  to  other 
objects  than  a  selfish  lavishment  of  his  fortune  on  his  private  wishes.  The 
expression  is  slightly  altered  from  the  1st  Edition. 

1.  26.  sole  judge  of  all  property,  &c.  See  the  motion  relative  to  the 
Speech  from  the  Throne,  14th  June,  17841  hi  which  this  fact  is  used  in  justi- 
fication of  the  disapproval,  expressed  by  the  Commons,  of  the  corruption  and 
intimidation  employed  by  the  ministers  and  peers.  The  judicial  power  of 
the  Lords  is  historically  traced  by  Hallam,  ch.  xiii. 

P.  61,  1.  7.  constitution  of  a  iingdom — aproblem  in  arithmetic.    Notwith- 
standing the  sarcasm,  which  became  very  popular,  the  principle  has  now  been 
recognised  not  only  in  England,  but  in  most  constitutional  governments. 
♦  That  British  liberty  's  an  empty  name 
Till  each  fair  burgh,  numerically  free, 
Shall  choose  its  members  by  the  Rule  of  Three.' 

Canning,  New  Morality. 
Rousseau's  theory,  however,  referred  not  to  the  rule  of  three,  but  to  the 
rule  of  the  square  root!     See  '  Contrat  Social,'  Liv.  iii.  ch.  i. 

1.  9.  lamp-post.  (Lanterne),  alluding  to  the  summary  executions  by  the 
mob  (see  infra,  p.  85),  which  began,  during  the  riots  which  preceded  the 
14th  of  July,  with  punishing  thieves  by  dragging  them  to  the  Greve,  and 
hanging  them  by  the  ropes  which  were  used  to  fasten  the  lanterns.  De 
Launay,  De  Losme,  Solbay,  and  Flesselles,  were  soon  afterwards  *  lynched ' 
in  the  same  way. 

L  28.  completed  its  work  .  .  .  accomplished  its  ruin.  Cp.  a  similar  expres- 
sion, vol.  i.  p.  145,  1.  27. 

P.  62, 1.  9.  dismembered  their  country.     Cp.  infra,  p.  1 1 3,  1.  21. 

P.  63,  1.  19.  ever-waking  vigilance.  Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  9,  1.  2.  The 
allusion  is  of  course  to  the  '  fair  Hesperian  tree,'  which 

'  Laden  with  blooming  gold,  had  need  the  guard 
Of  dragon-watch  and  uninchanted  eye.' — Comus,  1.  393. 


325  NOTES. 

1.  31.  milky  good-nature  — childish.  So  'milky  gentleness,'  Shakspeare, 
King  Lear,  Act  i.  scene  4.  Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  33,  1.  26,  '  milkiness  of  infants.' 
The  expression  seems  to  be  adopted  from  the  Spectator  (No.  177),  speaking 
of  constitutional  good-nature,  'which  Mr.  Dryden  somewhere  calls  a  milkiness 
of  blood.' 

1.  33.  heroic  fortitude  towards  the  sufferers.  Cp.  note  to  vol.  5.  p.  86, 
I.  5.  This  idea,  often  repeated  by  Burke,  is  derived  from  the  '  Thoughts 
on  Various  Subjects,'  by  Pope  and  Swift;  'I  never  knew  any  man  in  my  life, 
who  could  not  bear  another's  misfortunes  perfectly  like  a  Christian.' 

P.  64,  1.  4.  Is  07ir  monarchy,  &c.  By  the  next  page  it  will  be  seen  that 
Dr.  Price  had  marked  as  the  fundamental  grievance  of  the  English  people  the 
inadequacy  of  popular  representation.  Could  Burke  really  wish  to  be  under- 
stood as  declaring  that  a  reform  of  Parliament  in  England  would  lead  to  the 
changes  here  set  out  ?  If  so,  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  high  praise  he 
proceeds  to  bestow  on  the  English  people  for  their  steadiness  of  tem- 
perament ?  It  is,  however,  superfluous  to  point  out  all  the  logical  excesses 
of  a  heated  advocate. 

1.  8.  house  of  lords  to  be  voted  useless.  Alluding  to  the  Resolution  of  the 
Commons,  Feb.  6,  1649,  '  That  the  House  of  Peers  in  Parliament  is  useless 
and  dangerous,  and  ought  to  be  abolished.'  On  that  day  the  Lords  met,  and 
adjourned  '  till  ten  o'clock  to-morrow,'  That  morrow,  says  Mr.  Hallam,  was 
the  25th  of  April,  1660. 

1.  9.  done  away.  Strictly  correct.  So  to  do  out,  do  up,  do  off,  do  on 
(dout,  dup,  doff,  don),  &c.  The  modern  phrase,  to  '  do  away  with,'  has 
arisen  from  confusion  with  the  interjectional  expression,  'Away  with.' 
Spenser ; 

•  To  do  away  vain  doubt,  and  needless  dread.' 

1.  15.  land-tax — malt-tax — naval  strength.  The  land-tax  and  malt-duty 
were  the  only  imposts  included  in  the  estimate  of  '  ways  and  means '  for 
raising  the  '  supplies,'  which  provided  for  the  navy,  ordnance,  army,  and 
miscellaneous  services.  Taken  together,  these  imposts  did  rather  more  than 
pay  for  the  navy,  which  then  cost  about  two-and-half  millions  annually, 

1.  24.  in  the  increase,     i.  e.  in  the  form  of  an  increase. 

P.  65,  1.  4.  dull  sluggish  race — mediocrity  of  freedom.  Cp.  Letter  to 
Elliott ;  '  My  praises  of  the  British  government,  loaded  with  all  its  incum- 
brances ;  clogged  with  its  peers  and  its  beef;  its  parsons  and  its  pudding;  its 
commons  and  its  beer ;  and  its  dull  slavish  liberty  of  going  about  just  as  one 
pleases,'  &c. 

1.  7.  began  by  affecting  to  admire,  &c.  There  was  not  much  in  this. 
The  excellence  of  the  British  constitution  consisted  not  in  its  formal,  but  in 
its  moral  basis;  in  the  unity,  the  cordial  recognition,  and  the  substantial 
justice,  which  subsisted  between  class  and  class,  and  this  was  beyond  the 
reach  of  French  politicians.  Formally  regarded,  not  only  the  French 
leaders,  but  some  English  philosophers,  not  without  a  certain  justice,  always 
'looked  upon  it  with  a  sovereign   contempt.'     It  is  this  moral  basis  which 


NOTES.  327 

Burke,  following  his  master  Aristotle,  is  always  insisting  on  as  the  essence  of 
political  life  and  stability. 

1.  9.  the  friends  of  your  National  Assembly,  &c.  The  theory  of  the 
English  constitution  was  first  systematically  attacked  by  Bentham,  in  his 
Fragment  on  Government,  1775' 

1.  12.  has  discovered,  &c.  It  is  notorious  that  England  at  this  time  was 
not  free  in  the  sense  in  which  it  has  now  been  free  for  forty  years. 

1.  20.  representation  is  partial — possesses  liberty  only  partially.  For 
several  years  such  phrases  had  been  so  dinned  into  the  ears  of  the  English 
nation,  as  to  become  a  byword  for  the  wits.  Of  the  abstract  principle  that 
all  men  are  born  free,  Soame  Jenyns  says,  '  This  is  so  far  from  being  true, 
that  the  first  infringement  of  their  liberty  is  being  born  at  all ;  which  is 
imposed  upon  them  without  their  consent,  given  either  by  themselves  or 
their  representatives.'     Disquisition  on  Government  and  Civil  Liberty. 

P.  66,  1.  4.  treat  the  humbler  part  of  the  community  with  the  greatest 
contempt.  Nowhere  are  more  flagrant  examples  of  this  to  be  found  than  in 
Milton.  When  he  finds  or  imagines  the  mass  of  the  people  to  be  whh  him, 
he  treats  them  with  the  greatest  respect ;  when  there  is  a  reaction,  or  a 
chance  of  it,  they  become  '  the  blockish  vulgar ' — '  the  people,  exorbitant 
and  excessive  in  all  their  notions  ' — '  the  mad  multitude ' — '  a  miserable, 
credulous,  deluded  thing  called  the  vulgar'  (Eikonoklastes) — 'a  multitude, 
ready  to  fall  back,  or  rather  to  creep  back,  to  their  once  abjured  and 
detested  thraldom  of  kingship ' — '  the  inconsiderate  multitude '  (Mode  of 
Establishing  a  Free  Commonwealth) — 'the  simple  laity'  (Tenure  of  Kings). 
The  mild  Spenser  calls  the  people  'the  rascal  many.*  So  the  chorus  in 
Samson ; 

'  Nor  do  I  name  of  men  the  common  rout, 
That  wand'ring  loose  about. 
Grow  up  and  perish,  like  the  summer  flie. 
Heads  without  name  no  more  remembered.' 
'Tout  peuple,'  wrote   Marat,  'est  naturellement  moutonnier'  (Journal  de 
Marat,  Mars  5,  1793).     On  the  contempt  of  the  demagogues  of  the  ancient 
world  for  their  audience,  cp.  Arbuthnot's  (Swift's  ?)  paper  '  Concerning  the 
Altercation  or  Scolding  of  the  Ancients.' 

I.  II.  under  which  we  have  long  prospered.  See  Bentham's  Book  of 
Fallacies,  or  Sydney  Smith's  review  of  it,  for  a  consideration  of  this  trite 
argument. 

1.  12.  perfectly  adequate,  &c.  'If  there  is  a  doubt,  whether  the  House  of 
Commons  represents  perfectly  the  whole  commons  of  Great  Britain  (I  think 
there  is  none)  there  can  be  no  question  but  that  the  Lords  and  Commons 
together  represent  the  sense  of  the  vchole  people  to  the  crown,  and  to  the 
world.'     Third  Letter  on  a  Regicide  Peace. 

P.  67,  1.  8.  that  house  is  no  representative  of  the  people  at  all,  even  in 
semblance  or  in  form.  Directly  at  variance  with  all  constitutional  history. 
Selden  maintains  that  the  Lords  '  sit  for  the  commonwealth.'    In  the  '  Present 


328 


NOTES. 


Discontents'  (vol.  i.  p.  52, 1.  28),  Burke  maintains  Selden's  view  (see  IntroJ.  to 
vol.  i.  p.  xix).  It  would  te  idle  to  maintain  that  Burke's  views  had  suffered 
no  change :  but  the  change  was  certainly  not  produced  by  the  French  Revo- 
lution. It  dated  from  the  claim  set  up  by  the  Whig  rivals  of  Burke's  party, 
■when  in  office,  and  speaking  through  the  Throne,  to  convey  the  sense  of  the 
people  to  the  House  of  Commons,  in  a  manner  implying  distrust  and 
reproach ;  and  this  claim  was  supported  by  the  doctrine  that  the  Lords 
represented  the  people,  as  well  as  the  Commons.  Burke  singled  out  specially 
for  refutation  on  this  occasion  the  following  passage  from  Lord  Shelburne's 
Speech  of  April  8,  1778  ;  '  I  will  never  submit  to  the  doctrines  I  have  heard 
this  day  from  the  woolsack,  that  the  other  House  [House  of  Commons]  are 
the  only  representatives  and  guardians  of  the  people's  rights ;  I  boldly 
maintain  the  contrary — I  say  this  House  [House  of  Lords]  is  equally  the 
representatives  of  the  people.^  It  was  not  that  the  exigencies  of  party  war- 
fare induced  Burke  to  relinquish  his  position;  it  was  that  the  doctrine  was 
now  inspired  with  an  entirely  different  meaning.  Its  assertion  in  the  Present 
Discontents,  and  its  denial  fourteen  years  after,  were  made  with  the  same 
intention,  that  of  preventing  liberty  from  being  wounded  through  its  forms 
(see  Motion  relative  to  the  Speech  from  the  Throne,  1784).  It  would  be 
more  correct  to  keep  to  the  Whig  form  of  words  and  say  that  the  Crown  and 
Lords  are  trustees  for  the  people. 

1.  14.  built .  .  .  upon  a  basis  not  more  solid,  &c.  Cp,  vol.  i.  p.  152,  1.  26, 
p.  213,  1.  34. 

1.  20.  Something  they  must  destroy,  &c.  Burke  altered  the  commence- 
ment of  this  paragraph,  which  stands  thus  in  the  1st  Edition;  'Some  of 
them  are  so  heated  with  their  particular  religious  theories,  that  they  give 
more  than  hints  that  the  fall  of  the  civil  powers,  with  all  the  dreadful  conse- 
quences of  that  fall,  provided  they  might  be  of  service  to  their  theories, 
could  not  be  unacceptable  to  them,'  &c.  This  was  done  to  make  clearer  the 
serious  charge  here  brought  against  Priestley,  which  was  the  beginning  of  the 
persecution  which  finally  drove  him  from  the  country. 

1.  28.  appear  quite  certain.  Convinced,  however,  only  by  the  harmless 
enthusiasm  which  thinks  it  necessary  to  attach  a  specific  meaning  to  the 
visions  of  the  seer  in  the  Apocalypse.  It  was  not  until  1794  that  Dr. 
Priestley  offered  this  apology  for  it. 

1.  30.  a  man  .  .  0/ great  authority.  Dr.  Priestley,  The  offensive  passage 
is  that  which  concludes  his  formidable  '  History  of  the  Corruptions  of  Chris- 
tianity,* and  finishes  the  considerations  addressed  to  the  advocates  for  the 
civil  establishment  of  religion,  and  especially  to  Bishop  Hurd.  It  is  as  fol- 
lows ;  '  It  is  nothing  but  the  alliance  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  with  the 
kingdoms  of  this  world  (an  alliance  which  our  Lord  Himself  expressly  dis- 
claimed) that  supports  the  grossest  corruptions  of  Christianity ;  and  perhaps 
we  must  wait  for  the  fall  of  the  civil  powers  before  this  most  unnatural 
alliance  be  broken.  Calamitous,  no  doubt,  will  that  time  be.  But  what 
convulsion  in  the  political  world  ought  to  be  a  subject  of  lamentation,  if  it 


NOTES.  329 

be  attended  with  so  desirable  an  event  ?  May  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  of 
Christ,  (that  which  1  conceive  to  be  intended  in  the  Lord's  Prayer,)  truly 
and  fully  come,  though  all  the  kingdoms  in  the  world  be  removed  in  order 
to  make  way  for  it !'  The  publication  of  this  in  1782,  at  or  very  near  one 
of  the  most  critical  periods  of  our  domestic  history,  when  a  religious 
enthusiasm  which  had  already  reduced  much  of  the  metropolis  to  ashes, 
threatened  to  ally  itself  with  an  equally  formidable  political  element  (cp. 
note  to  p.  59,  1.  13),  justifies  much  of  the  obloquy  that  followed  when 
Burke  called  attention  to  it. 

1.  32.  alliance  between  church  and  state.  The  well-known  doctrine  of 
Bishop  Warburton,  alluded  to  post,  p.  108,  1.  29  sqq. 

1.  33.  fall  of  the  civil  powers.  The  meaning  of  this  was  not  to  be  mis- 
taken. Immediately  before,  Priestley  has  been  asking  why  Lutheranism 
and  Anglicanism  had  been  established,  while  the  Anabaptists  of  Miinster, 
and  the  Socinians,  had  been  persecuted  ?  '  I  know  of  no  reason  why,  but 
that  the  opinions  of  Luther  and  Cranmer  had  the  sanction  of  the  civil 
powers,  which  those  of  Socinus  and  others  of  the  same  age,  and  who  were 
equally  well  qualified  to  judge  for  themselves,  had  not.' 

1.  34.  Calamitous  no  doubt,  &c.  Dr.  Priestley  on  the  28th  of  Feb.,  1794, 
the  day  appointed  for  a  general  fast,  preached  at  the  Gravel-pit  Meeting  in 
Hackney  a  sermon,  entitled  '  The  Present  State  of  Europe  compared  with 
Ancient  Prophecies,'  in  which  he  repeats  and  justifies  the  offensive  paragraph, 
and  warns  his  congregation  of  the  '  danger  to  the  civil  powers  of  Europe,  in 
consequence  of  their  connexion  with  antichristian  ecclesiastical  systems.'  He 
also  apologised  for  it  in  a  letter  dated  Northumberiand,  Nov.  10,  1802, 
addressed  to  the  editor  of  the  Monthly  Magazine,  by  saying  that  it  was  not 
intended  for  England,  but  for  Europe  generally,  '  especially  those  European 
States  which  had  been  parts  of  the  Roman  Empire,  but  were  then  in 
communion  with  the  Church  of  Rome.  .  .  .  Besides  that  the  interpretation 
of  prophecy  ought  to  be  free  to  all,  it  is  the  opinion,  I  believe,  of  every 
commentator  that  these  states  are  doomed  to  destruction.'  In  an  Appendix 
to  the  Fast  Sermon,  he  prints  a  long  extract  from  Hartley's  '  Observations  on 
Man'  (1749),  in  which  the  fall  of  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  powers  was 
predicted  with  similar  coolness.  '  It  would  be  great  rashness,'  says  Hartley 
in  his  conclusion,  '  to  fix  a  time  for  the  breaking  of  the  storm  that  hangs 
over  our  heads,  as  it  is  blindness  and  infatuation  not  to  see  it,  nor  to  be 
aware  that  it  may  break ;  and  yet  this  infatuation  has  always  attended  all 
falling  states.* 

P.  68,  1.  10.  possessed  by  these  notions.  In  the  sense  of  diabolical  pos- 
session. '  An  obstinate  man,'  says  Butler,  '  does  not  hold  opinions,  but  they 
hold  him  ;  for  when  once  he  is  possessed  with  an  error,  'tis  like  the  devil,  not 
to  be  cast  out  but  with  great  difficulty.' 

1.  14.  solid  test  of  long  experience.     Cp.  note  to  p.  66,  I.  il,  ante. 

1.  17-  wrought  under-ground  a  mine  .  .  .  the  'rights  of  men,'  Locke 
and  Sidney  were  the  founders  of  the  school  of  the  '  Rights  of  Men,'  and  first 


330  NOTES, 

made  the  Rights  of  the  Englishman,  in  theory,  ancillary  to  the  general 
pretensions  to  liberty  on  behalf  of  the  man.  The  argument  of  Sidney  is 
first,  that  all  men  have  by  nature  certain  rights,  second,  that  Englishmen 
have  ever  enjoyed  those  rights.  But  how  was  it  possible  for  Frenchmen  to 
assert  a  similar  claim  ?  The  '  rights  of  man  '  were  literally  the  only  basis  in 
reasoning  on  which  their  claims  could  have  been  founded.  In  England,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  particular  liberties  of  the  subject  were  so  well  established, 
that  Sidney  himself  rests  the  great  body  of  his  arguments  on  the  rights  of 
the  Englishman.  He  is  liable,  as  much  as  Burke,  to  the  very  charge  which 
Rousseau  brings  against  Grotius ;  '  Sa  plus  constante  maniere  de  raisonner 
est  d'etablir  toujours  le  droit  par  le  fait.' 

P.  69,  I.  I.  Ilia  sejactet  in  aula,  &c.     Virg.  Aen.  i.  140. 

1.  2.  Levanter  =  2.  tempestuous  East  wind. 

1.  3.  break  up  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep.  Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  123, 
1.  25. 

1.  7.  the  real  rights  of  men.  The  profound  and  just  remarks  which  follow 
are  a  fine  example  of  that  '  dower  of  spanning  wisdom'  in  which  Burke  was 
so  rich,  and  expressed  with  an  unusual  strength  and  simplicity  of  construction. 

1.  14.  as  between  their  fellows — i.e.  as  between  themselves  and  their 
fellows. 

1.  17.  means  of  malting  their  industry  fruitful — i.e.  to  the  occupation  of 
the  soil,  without  prejudice  to  the  rights  of  the  owner.  Cp.  vol.  i.  p. 
189, 1.  9. 

1.  18.  acquisitions  of  their  parents.  Without  prejudice,  of  course,  to  the 
right  of  the  parent  to  dispose  of  it  himself.     Cp.  ante,  p.  60, 1.  16. 

I.  19.  instruction  in  life,  consolation  in  death — alluding  to  the  Church 
establishment. 

1.  24.  In  this  partnership,  &c.  This  happy  illustration  is  an  after-thought, 
and  is  wanting  in  the  First  Edition. 

1.  31.  deny  to  be  amongst  the  direct  original  rights,  &c.  Equality  of 
power  might  even  be  denied  to  be  among  the  physical  possibilities  of 
civil  society. 

P.  70,  1.  I.  offspring  of  convention.  Burke  here  admits  the  fundamental 
doctrines  relating  to  the  Social  Contract,  and  proceeds  to  show  how  they 
change  their  significance  in  practice. 

1.  9.  one  of  the  first  motives  to  civil  society,  &c.  The  process  is  traced 
with  his  usual  clearness  by  Hooker,  Ecc.  Pol.,  Book  i.  §  10.  Burke  seems 
to  have  in  mind  Hooker's  disciple  Locke,  Treat,  of  Government,  Book  ii. 
ch.  7,  §  90;  'For  the  end  of  civil  society  being  to  avoid  and  remedy 
those  inconveniences  of  the  state  of  nature,  which  necessarily  follow  from 
every  man's  being  a  judge  in  his  own  case,'  &c. 

1.  II.  judge  in  his  own  cause.  Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  194,  1.  1,  and  the  'Letter 
to  the  Sheriffs  of  Bristol,'  in  which  the  argument  from  this  principle  is 
expanded  and  applied  to  the  relations  of  states  between  themselves.  '  When 
any  community  is  subordinately  connected  with  another,  the  great  danger  of 


NOTES,  ^'^  1 

the  connexion  is  the  extreme  pride  and  self-complacency  of  the  superior, 
which  in  all  matters  of  controversy  will  probably  decide  in  its  own 
favour,'  &c. 

I.  17.  rights  of  an  uncivil  and  a  civil  state  together.  Cp.  Lucretius, 
V.  1147; 

•Acrius  ex  ira  quod  enJm  se  quisque  parabat 
Ulcisci,  quani  nunc  concessum  est  legibus  acquis, 
Hanc  ob  rem  est  homines  pertaesum  vi  colere  aevum.' 
Other  illustrations  from  the  classics  are  given  in  Grotius,  Lib.  ii.  c.  20. 

1.  19.  secure  some  liberty,  makes  a  surrender  in  trust  of  the  whole  of  it. 
'II  me  semble  que  I'homme,  sortant  de  I'etat  naturel,  pour  arriver  a  I'etat 
social,  perd  son  independance  pour  acquerir  plus  de  surete.  L'homme  quitte 
ses  compagnons  des  bois  qui  ne  le  genent  pas,  mais  qui  peuvent  le  devorer, 
pour  venir  trouver  une  societe  qui  ne  le  devorera  pas,  mais  qui  doit  le  gener. 
II  stipule  ses  interets  du  mieux  qu'il  pent,  et,  lorsqu'il  entre  dans  une  bonne 
constitution,  il  cede  le  moins  de  son  independance,  et  obtient  le  plus  de 
surete  qu'il  est  possible.'  Rivarol,  Journal  Politique.  Liberty  is  a  com- 
promise between  independence  and  security.  This  'surrender  in  trust* 
resembles  the  surrender,  in  the  contract  of  insurance,  of  a  portion  of  your 
property,  for  the  security  of  the  whole. 

1.  22.  not  made  in  virtue  of  natural  rights.  Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  34, 
1.6. 

1.  34.  even  in  the  mass  and  body,  &c.  'With  all  respect  for  popular 
assemblies  be  it  spoken,*  says  Swift,  'it  is  hard  to  recollect  one  folly, 
infirmity,  or  vice,  to  which  a  single  man  is  subjected,  and  from  which  a 
body  of  commons,  either  collective  or  represented,  can  be  wholly  exempt.' 
Contests  and  Discussions  in  Athens  and  Rome,  ch.  iv. 

P.  71,  1.  3.  power  out  of  themselves.  Compare  this  with  the  trivial 
sophism  of  Sieyes,  '  II  ne  faut  pas  placer  le  regulateur  hors  de  la  machine.' 
Burke  truly  says  elsewhere ;  '  An  ignorant  man,  who  is  not  fool  enough  to 
meddle  with  his  clock,  is  however  sufficiently  confident  to  think  he  can 
safely  take  to  pieces,  and  put  together  at  his  pleasure,  a  moral  machine 
of  another  guise,  importance,  and  complexity,  composed  of  far  other  wheels, 
and  springs,  and  balances,  and  counteracting  and  co-operating  powers.  Men 
little  think  how  immorally  they  act  in  meddling  with  what  they  do  not 
understand.'  Rivarol  says,  in  the  same  view,  '  Rien  ne  ressemble  moins 
a  une  balance  que  la  machine  du  gouvernement ;  rien  ne  ressemble  moins 
a  un  equilibre  que  la  marche  des  corps  politiques,'  &c.  CEuvres,  vol.  iv, 
p.  265. 

1.  6.  restraints  on  men — among  their  rights.     Cp.  ante,  p.  9, 1.  10. 

1.  1 7.  most  delicate  and  complicated  skill.     Cp.  note  above,  1.  3. 

1.  22.  recruits  =  {resh.  supplies  of  nourishment. 

1.  23.   What  is  the  use,  &c.     Observe  the  close  similarity  to  Aristotle, 

1.  33,  real  ejects  of  moral  causes.  '  Moral '  is  used  as  commonly  by 
Btirke,  for  the  contrary  of '  physical,' 


332  NOTES. 

P.  72,  1.  II.  More  experience  than  any  person  can  gain  in  his  whole  life. 
The  democratical  theory  appears  to  be  that  political  judgment  comes  to 
a  man  with  puberty.  The  truth  is,  that  like  practical  wisdom  in  private 
matters,  it  comes  to  none  who  have  not  laboriously  worked  for  it,  and 
therefore  to  most  people  not  at  all. 

1.  14.  pulling  down  an  edifice.  'To  construct,'  wrote  Burke  six  years 
before,  '  is  a  matter  of  skill ;  to  demolish,  force  and  fury  are  sufficient.' 
Similar  expressions  are  used  by  Soame  Jenyns. 

1.  17.  approved  utility  =  ■proved. 

1.  18.  like  rays  of  light.  An  admirable  illustration.  Cp.  Bacon's  obser- 
vation that  the  human  understanding  is  not  a  '  dry  light,'  but  imbued  with 
the  colours  of  the  will  and  passions. 

1.  31.  ignorant  0/  their  trade.     Cp.  infra,  p.  187,  1.  19. 

P.  73,  1.  10.  in  proportion  as  they  are  metaphysically  true,  &c.  Burke 
takes  up  a  cant  paradox  of  the  day.  Soame  Jenyns ;  '  It  is  a  certain  though 
a  strange  truth,  that  in  politics  all  principles  which  are  speculatively  right, 
are  practically  wrong ;  the  reason  of  which  is,  that  they  proceed  on  a  sup- 
position that  men  act  rationally;  which  being  by  no  means  true,  all  that 
is  built  on  so  false  a  foundation,  on  experiment  falls  to  the  ground.'  Reflec- 
tions on  Several  Subjects.  '  Metaphysics '  was  commonly  applied  as  a  term 
of  reproach  by  English  writers  after  the  promulgation  of  the  philosophy 
of  Locke,  and  especially  so  used  by  the  Essayists. 

1.  14.  balances,  compromises.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  222, 1.  13. 

1.  19.  denominations.     In  the  arithmetical  sense  =  numbers. 

L  20.  right — power.     Cp.  note  to  p.  23, 1.  25,  ante. 

1.  21).  first  of  all  virtues,  prudence  — (ppovrjms.  Cp.  Arist.  Eth.,  Lib.  vi. 
c.  8,  &c.  In  a  previous  work  Burke  calls  prudence  '  the  God  of  this  lower 
world,'  perhaps  in  allusion  to  Juv.  Sat.  x.  365. 

I.  27.  Liceat perire  poetis,  &c.     Hor.  de  Arte  Poet.  465,  466. 

1.  28.  one  of  them.  Empedocles.  The  allusion  is  of  course  to  him  in  his 
philosophical  rather  than  his  poetical  character. 

1.  32.  or  divine.  The  allusion  is  to  Dr.  Price,  as  may  be  seen  from  the 
opening  of  the  next  paragraph.  Burke  means  that  at  the  end  of  an  honourable 
career.  Price  was  playing  the  fool,  like  the  philosopher  in  the  legend.  Cp. 
Butler,  Fragments ; 

'Empedocles,  to  be  esteem'd  a  God, 
Leapt  into  .ffitna,  with  his  sandals  shod, 
That  b'ing  blown  out,  discover'd  what  an  ass 
The  great  philosopher  and  juggler  was, 
That  to  his  own  new  deity  sacriiic'd. 
And  was  himself  the  victim  and  the  priest.' 
So  Milton,  Par.  Lost,  iii.  469 ; 

'  Others  came  single ;  he  who  to  be  deem'd 
A  god,  leap'd  fondly  into  ^tna  flames, 
Empedocles.' 


NOTES,  ^^^ 

P.  74, 1.  13.  cantharides.  The  Spanish  or  blistering  fly,  sometimes  taken 
internally  as  a  stimulant. 

1.  14.  relaxes  the  spring.  Burke  often  employs  this  image,  which  was 
very  fashionable  in  the  times  when  the  most  usual  illustration  of  a  govern- 
ment was  some  piece  of  inanimate  mechanism. 

1.  19.  cum  perimit  savos,  &c.     Juv.  vii.  151. 

1.  22.  almost  all  the  high-bred  republicans — i.e.  extreme.  Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  8, 
1.  1 7,  &c.,  and  note.  The  Bedford  Whigs,  the  Grenville  Whigs  (excepting 
their  head.  Lord  Temple),  and  finally  the  party  of  Lord  Chatham,  had 
yielded  in  succession  to  the  attraction  of  the  Court  party.  This  high-bred 
republicanism,  extending  even  to  equality  of  rank  and  property,  seems  to 
have  been  much  in  vogue  in  the  reign  of  Anne,  when  it  was  often  advanced 
in  Parliament,  fortified  by  the  abstract  reasoning  to  which  Burke  was  so 
hostile.  Its  currency  was  commonly  laid  to  the  account  of  the  writings  of 
Locke ;  but  it  is  easy  to  trace  it  to  much  earlier  and  more  general  causes. 
A  democratical  tone  was  frequently  assumed  by  Whig  politicians  in  the 
succeeding  reigns,  in  order  to  conciliate  popular  favour. 

1.  26.  those  of  us,  Sec.     The  Rockingham  party. 

L  38.  Hypocrisy,  Sec.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  87,  1.  16,  and  note. 

P.  75,  1.  2.  civil  and  legal  resistance.  Cp.  with  this  paragraph,  the 
passage  in  the  '  Letter  to  the  Sheriffs  of  Bristol '  in  which  the  Party  system 
is  defended  against  the  attacks  of '  those  who  pretend  to  be  strong  assertcrs 
of  liberty.'  '  This  moral  levelling  is  a  servile  principle.  It  leads  to  practical 
passive  obedience  far  better  than  all  the  doctrines  which  the  pliant  accom- 
modation of  theology  to  power  has  ever  produced.  It  cuts  up  by  the  roots, 
not  only  all  idea  of  forcible  resistance,  but  even  of  civil  opposition.' 

1.  6.  think  lightly  of  all  public  principle.  See  the  description  of  the 
process  of  Ratting  at  the  end  of  the  '  Observations  on  a  late  State  of  the 
Nation'  (1769). 

P.  76,  1.  17.  well-placed  sympathies.     Cp.  note  to  vol.  1.  p.  89,  1.  21. 

1.  26.  still  unanimating  repose  of  public  prosperity.  '  Still '  is  an  adverb  = 
ever.     Cp.  ante,  note  to  p.  65,  1.  4. 

L  31.  Pisgah  of  his  pulpit.     Deut.  xxxiv.  i. 

P.  77,  1.  28.  Another  of  these  reverend  gentlemen.  Who  this  was  dots 
not  appear.  Mr.  Rutt,  the  laborious  editor  and  annotator  of  Dr.  Priestley, 
notices  the  quotation,  but  gives  no  information.  The  writer  alluded  to 
may  perhaps  be  the  person  quoted  in  the  foot-note  at  p.  102. 

P.  78,  1.  7.  Peters  had  not  the  fruits,  &c.  He  was  tried  at  the  Restora- 
tion, and  executed  with  other  regicides  at  Charing  Cross. 

P.  79,  1.  10.  unmanly.     A  characteristic  epithet  with  Burke. 

1.  12.  well-born  =  gerteious,  liberal,  Gr.  fvipv:'js. 

1.  15.  procession  of  American  savages.  A  reminiscence  of  Burke's  read- 
ing in  the  preparation  of  one  of  his  early  works,  the  'Account  of  European 
Settlements  in  America.'     Fee  that  work,  part  ii.  ch.  4. 

entering  into  Onondaga.     An  Indian  village  in  the  western  part  of  what 


334  NOTES. 

is  now  the  State  of  New  York,  which  was  the  central  station  of  the  French 
Jesuit  missionaries,  in  whose  accounts  these  scenes  are  described.  See 
•Relation  de  ce  qui  est  passe,  &c.,  au  pays  dc  la  Nouvelle  France  es 
annees  1655  ^^  1656,'  by  J.  de  Qiiens,  and  Bancroft,  Hist.  U.S.  vol.  iii. 
p.  143  sqq. 

1.  18.  women  as  ferocious  as  themselves.  'The  women,  forgetting  the 
human  as  well  as  the  female  nature,  and  transformed  into  something  worse 
than  furies,  act  their  parts,  and  even  out-do  the  men  in  this  scene  of  horror.' 
Sett,  in  America,  vol.  i.  p.  198.  It  is  unnecessary  to  illustrate  this  by  the 
incidents  of  the  Revolution. 

1.  21.  their  situation.  That  of  absolute  dependence  on  the  will  of  an 
organisation  of  mobs. 

P.  80,  1.  3.  foreign  republic.     The  city  of  Paris. 

1.  4.  whose  constitution,  &.C,  The  municipal  government  of  Paris,  which 
had  passed  out  of  the  hands  of  the  300  electors,  was  at  this  time  shared 
between  60  departments.  Each  department  was  a  caricature  of  a  Greek 
democratic  state,  was  considered  by  its  inhabitants  as  a  sovereign  power, 
and  passed  resolutions,  which  had  the  force  of  laws  within  its  limits.  This 
division  into  60  departments  was  first  introduced  to  facilitate  the  election 
to  the  States-General ;  but  the  easy  means  which  it  afforded  of  summoning 
the  people  of  each  district  upon  short  notice,  and  of  communicating  a  show 
of  regularity  and  unanimity  to  their  proceedings,  made  it  too  useful  a  system 
to  be  discarded.  Much  of  that  appearance  of  order  and  government  which 
characterises  the  first  year  of  the  Revolution  is  due  rather  to  this  device, 
than  to  that  self-restraint  which  made  '  anarchy  tolerable '  in  Massachusetts. 
(See  vol.  i.  p.  186.) 

1.  4.  emanated  neither  from  the  charter  of  their  hing.  Sec.  Having  arisen 
out  of  temporary  and  mechanical  arrangements.  Necker,  however,  had  by 
a  grave  error  in  policy  recognised  the  300  electors  as  a  legal  body.  Their 
functions  properly  extended  only  to  the  choosing  of  representatives  in  the 
States-General ;  and  they  were  entrusted  with  power  by  the  people  on  the 
13th  of  July  merel}'  because  they  were  the  only  body  in  whom  the  public 
could  immediately  confide. 

1.  6.  an  army  not  raised  either  by  the  authority,  &c.  The  National 
Guards,  formed  in  haste  after  the  dismission  of  Necker  on  the  nth  of  July. 
•  Thirty  thousand  citizens,  totally  unaccustomed  to  arms,  were  soon  seen 
armed  at  all  points,  and  in  a  few  hours  training  assumed  some  appearance  of 
order  and  discipline.  The  French  Guards  now  shewed  the  benefits  of  their 
late  education  and  improvements ;  they  came  in  a  body  to  tender  their 
services  to  the  people.' 

1.  9.  There  they  sit,  &c.  The  first  edition  represented  all  the  moderate 
members  as  having  been  driven  away.  '  There  they  sit,  after  a  gang  of 
assassins  had  driven  away  all  the  men  of  moderate  minds  and  moderating 
authority  among  them,  and  left  them  as  a  sort  of  dregs  and  refuse,  under 
the  apparent  lead  of  those  in  whom  they  do  not  so  much  as  pretend  to 


NOTES.  335 

have  any  confidence.  There  they  sit,  in  mockery  of  legislation,  repeating 
in  resolutions  the  words  of  those  whom  they  detest  and  despise.  Captives 
themselves,  they  compel  a  captive  king,'  &c.  M.  de  Menonville,  one  of 
the  moderate  party,  wrote  to  Burke  on  the  17th  of  November,  to  point 
out  the  inaccuracy  of  this,  and  some  other  statements ;  and  Burke  in  the 
next  edition  corrected  it.  'Some  of  the  errors  you  point  out  to  me  in 
my  printed  letter  are  really  such.  One  only  I  find  to  be  material.  It  is 
corrected  in  the  edition  I  take  the  Hberty  of  sending  to  you.'  Letter  to 
a  Member  of  the  National  Assembly,  Jan.  19,  1791.  In  this  letter  he 
made  them  ample  amends  by  a  glowing  panegyric.  '  Sir,  I  do  look  on  you 
as  true  martyrs ;  I  regard  you  as  soldiers  who  act  far  more  in  the  spirit 
of  our  Commander-in-Chief,  and  the  Captain  of  our  salvation,  than  those 
who  have  left  you ;  though  I  must  first  bolt  myself  very  thoroughly, 
and  know  that  I  can  do  better,  before  I  can  answer  them^  He  proceeds 
while  commending  Abbe  Maury,  Cazales,  &c.,  who  remained  at  their 
post,  to  apologise  for  those  who,  like  Mounier  and  Lally-ToUendal,  had 
abandoned  it, 

1.  18.  decided  before  they  are  debated.  The  clubs  governed  in  the  depart- 
ments of  Paris,  and  through  them,  in  the  National  Assembly. 

1.  22.  all  conditions,  tongues  and  natiotis.  Aristocrats  and  clergymen 
joined  and  even  took  the  lead  in  these  assemblies.  Germans,  Italians,  Eng- 
lishmen, Swiss,  and  Spaniards  were  found  among  them.  The  greater  part 
of  the  Central  Committee  at  the  Eveche  were  not  Frenchmen. 

1.  27.  Academies  .  .  set  up  in  all  the  places  0/ public  resort.  The  allusion 
is  to  the  Conciliabules.  '  The  Parisians,'  says  Mercier,  '  have  wished  to 
imitate  the  English,  who  meet  in  taverns,  and  discuss  the  most  important 
affairs  of  the  state ;  but  that  did  not  take,  because  every  one  wished  to 
preside  at  these  meetings.' 

P.  81,  1.  4.  Embracing  in  their  arms,  &c.  Burke  refers  to  the  circum- 
stances attending  the  condemnation,  for  a  bank-note  forgery,  of  the  brothers 
Agasse,  which  occurred  in  the  middle  of  January,  1 790.  Dr.  Guillotin  had 
some  time  previously  proposed  to  the  Assembly  to  inflict  the  punishment 
of  death  in  a  painless  manner,  and  to  relieve  the  relations  of  the  criminal 
from  the  feudal  taint  of  felony.  The  Abbe  Pepin,  on  this  occasion,  pro- 
cured the  enactment  of  the  last  of  these  changes ;  and  while  the  criminals 
lay  mider  sentence  of  hanging,  their  brother  and  cousin,  with  the  view  of 
marking  this  triumph  of  liberty,  were  promoted  to  be  lieutenants  in  the 
Grenadier  Company  of  the  Battalion  of  National  Guards  for  the  district 
of  St.  Honor^,  on  which  occasion,  in  defiance  of  public  decency  and  natural 
feeling,  they  were  publicly  feasted  and  complimented.  See  Mr.  Croker's 
Essay  on  the  Guillotine  in  the  Quarterly  Review  for  December,  1843. 

1.  13.  Explode  them  =  hoot  off,  reject,  Lat.  explodo.  Cp,  'exploding  hiss,' 
Par,  Lost,  x.  546. 

1.  17.  gallery  .  ,  ,  house.     Alluding  to  the  English  House  of  Commons. 

1,  20.  Nee  color  imperii,  &c.    Lucan,  Phars.  ix.  207  (^erat  for  erit).    From 


zz^ 


NOTES. 


the  glcomy  presages  put  Into  the  mouth  of  Cato,  on  the  death  of  Pompey; 
from  which  are  also  taken  the  lines  quoted  in  vol.  i.  p.  144. 

1.  21.  power  given  them  .  .  .  to  subvert  and  to  destroy.  The  allusion 
seems  to  be  to  the  expression  so  common  in  the  Apocalypse  (see  ch.  xiii. 
7,  &c.). 

1.  22.  none  to  construct.  See  the  Second  Part  of  the  work,  in  which  their 
efforts  to  construct  are  criticised. 

1.  28.  /raf/r/M/e  =  institution. 

P.  82,  II.  4,  6.  •  Un  beau  jour."  '  That  the  vessel  of  the  state'  &c.  Bailly 
and  Mirabeau,  infra,  p.  87,  note. 

I.  II.  slaughter  of  innocent  gentlemen  in  their  houses.  Foulon  and 
Berthier,  who  were,  however,  murdered  by  the  lanteme  at  the  Greve, 
'  with  every  circumstance  of  refined  insult  and  cruelty  which  could  have 
been  exhibited  by  a  tribe  of  cannibals.' 

1,  13.  the  blood  spilled  was  not  the  most  pure.  The  remark  of  Barnave, 
■when  Lally-Tollendal  was  describing  this  horrid  scene,  and  Mirabeau  told 
him  '  it  was  a  time  to  think  rather  than  to  feel.' 

1.  21.  felicitation  on  the  present  New  Year.  Alluding  to  the  address 
presented  to  the  king  and  queen  on  the  3rd  of  January  by  a  deputation 
of  60  members  of  the  Assembly.  '  They  (the  Assembly)  look  forward 
to  the  happy  day,  when  appearing  in  a  body  before  a  prince,  the  friend  of 
the  people,  they  shall  present  to  him  a  collection  of  laws  calculated  for 
his  happiness,  and  the  happiness  of  all  the  French ;  when  their  respectful 
affection  shall  entreat  a  beloved  king  to  forget  the  disorders  of  a  tem- 
piestuous  epoch,'  &c. 

P.  83,  1.  I.  frippery.  In  the  proper  sense  of  old  clothing  furbished  up 
for  second  sale.     Cp.  the  French  word«,  friper,  fripier,  friperie. 

still  in  the  old  cut.  '  Those  French  fashions,  which  of  late  years  have 
brought  their  principles,  both  with  regard  to  religion  and  government,  a 
little  in  question.'     Lord  Chesterfield,  The  World,  No.  146  (1755). 

1.  10.  ortfinary  =  chaplain. 

1.  18.  leze  nation.  The  new  name  given  by  the  Assembly  to  the  offence 
of  treason  against  the  nation,  which  was  put  under  the  cognisance  of  the 
Chateiet.    It  is  imitated  from  the  name  lese  majeste  (laesa  majestas,  treason). 

1.  26.  balm  of  hurt  minds.     Macbeth,  Act  ii.  sc.  2. 

P.  84,  I.  7.  the  centinel  at  her  door.  M.  de  Miomandre.  '  After  bravely 
resisting  for  a  few  minutes,  finding  himself  entirely  overpowered,  he  opened 
the  queen's  door,  and  called  out  with  a  loud  voice.  Save  the  queen,  her  life  is 
aimed  at !  I  stand  alone  against  two  thousand  tigers !  He  soon  after  sunk 
down  covered  with  wounds,  and  was  left  for  dead.' 

1.  10.  cut  down.     He  recovered,  however,  from  his  wounds. 

1.  12.  pierced  . .  .  the  bed.  This  has  been  denied.  It  is  impossible  to 
say  whether  it  is  true. 

1.  25.  Two  had  been  selected,  &c.  M.  de  Huttes  and  M.  Varicourt,  two 
of  the  guards. 


NOTES.  337 

p.  85, 1.  7-  one  of  the  old  palaces.  The  Tuileries,  where  the  King  was 
whilst  Burke  was  writing. 

P.  86,  1.  6.  Jifih  monarchy.  Cp.  note  to  p.  6;^,  1.  30,  ante.  The  fifth 
monarchy  was  the  dream  of  a  large  sect  of  enthusiasts  in  the  Puritan  times. 

1.  8.  in  the  midst  of  this  joy.     An  allusion  to  Lucretius,  iv.  1129  ; 
'  .  .  .  .  medio  de  fonte  leporum 
Surgit  amari  aliquid,  quod  in  ipsis  floribus  angat.' 

1.  14.  a  groupe  of  regicide  .  ,  .  What  hardy  pencil,  &c.  Burke  only  too 
clearly  foresaw  what  was  to  happen.  In  his  next  piece  on  French  affairs, 
the  '  Letter  to  a  Member  of  the  National  Assembly,'  he  repeats  his  belief 
that  they  would  assassinate  the  king  as  soon  as  he  was  no  longer  necessary 
to  their  design.  He  thought,  however,  that  the  queen  would  be  the  first 
victim.  Cp.  infra,  p.  88,  1.  35.  In  the  Second  Letter  on  a  Regicide  Peace, 
he  defends  his  anticipation  on  this  point.  *  It  was  accident,  and  the  mo- 
mentary depression  of  that  part  of  the  faction,  that  gave  to  the  husband  the 
happy  priority  in  death.' 

P.  88,  1.  30.  offspring  of  a  sovereign,  &c.     Maria  Theresa. 

1.  32.  Roman  matron.  Burke  had  in  mind  some  story  such  as  that  of 
Lucretia. 

1.  34.  that  in  the  last  extremity,  &c.  Alluding  to  the  queen's  carrying 
poison  about  with  her. 

P.  89,  1.  I.  //  is  now,  &c.  Burke  to  Sir  P.  Francis,  Feb.  20,  1790;  '  I 
tell  you  again,  that  the  recollection  of  the  manner  in  which  I  saw  the  Queen 
of  France,  in  the  year  1774,  and  the  contrast  between  that  brilliancy, 
splendour,  and  beauty,  with  the  prostrate  homage  of  a  nation  to  her — and 
the  abominable  scene  of  1789,  which  I  was  describing,  did  draw  tears  from 
me,  and  wetted  my  paper.  These  tears  came  again  into  my  eyes,  almost  as 
often  as  I  looked  at  the  description  ;  they  may  again.  You  do  not  believe 
this  fact,  nor  that  these  are  my  real  feelings :  but  that  the  whole  is  affected, 
or,  as  you  express  it,  downright  foppery.' 

1.  4.  just  above  the  horizon.     Cp.  a  similar  image  in  vol.  i.  p.  146,  1.  18. 

1.  10.  titles  of  veneration,  i.  e.  that  of  queen. 

1.  II.  sharp  antidote.     Cp.  last  page,  1.  34. 

1.  18.  the  age  of  chivalry  is  gone.  This  famous  theatrical  passage  has  been 
perhaps  too  roughly  handled  by  the  critics.  The  lament  for  chivalry  is  as 
old  as  the  birth  of  what  we  regard  as  modern  ideas.  See  the  famous  stanzas 
of  Ariosto  on  the  loyalty  and  frankness  of  the  old  knightly  days. 

Sophisters  =  sophists. 

1.  20.  generous  loyalty.  Some  readers  of  M.  Taine  may  have  been 
startled  by  his  comment  on  the  term  loyalty — 'mot  intraduisible,  qui 
designe  le  sentiment  de  subordination,  quand  il  est  noble '  (Les  Ecrivains 
Anglais  Contemporains,  p.  318).  So  completely  has  the  idea  been  effaced 
from  the  French  mind  !     The  word  '  loyaute '  has  a  different  meaning. 

proud  submission.  The  '  modestie  superbe  '  of  the  courtier  is  mentioned 
by  Montesquieu,  Liv.  iv.  ch.  2. 

VOL.  n.  ,  Z 


33^ 


NOTES. 


1.  23.  the  spirit  of  an  exalted  freedom.  This  conclusion  pervades  the 
writings  of  Boliiigbroke  upon  mediseval  English  history,  especially  the  reign 
of  Edward  III.  It  coincides  also  with  the  well-known  conclusion  of  Gibbon, 
that  the  spirit  of  freedom  breathes  throughout  the  feudal  institutions.  So  in 
Second  Letter  on  Regicide  Peace :  '  In  all  these  old  countries,  the  state  has 
been  made  to  the  people,  and  not  the  people  conformed  to  the  state.  ,  .  . 
This  comprehensive  scheme  virtually  produced  a  degree  of  personal  liberty 
in  forms  the  most  adverse  to  it.  That  liberty  was  formed,  under  monarchies 
stiled  absolute,  in  a  degree  unknown  to  the  ancient  commonwealths.' 

1.  25.  nitrse  of  manly  sentiment  and  heroic  enterprise,  is  gone.  '  Ces 
vertus  males  qui  nous  seraient  le  plus  necessaires  et  que  nous  n'avons  presque 
plus — un  veritable  esprit  d'indc'pendance,  le  gout  des  grandes  choses,  la  foi  en 
nous-memes  et  dans  una  cause.'  De  Tocqueville,  Preface  to  Ancien  Regime, 
p.  ix. 

1.  26.  that  chastity  of  honour,     Bowles,  Verses  to  Burke  ; 
'  No,  Burke !  thy  heart,  by  juster  feelings  led. 
Mourns  for  the  spirit  of  high  Honour  fled  ; 
Mourns  that  Philosophy,  abstract  and  cold, 
With'ring  should  smite  life's  fancy-fiowered  mould ; 
And  many  a  smiling  sympathy  depart. 
That  graced  the  sternness  of  the  manly  heart.' 

1.  27.  felt  a  stain  like  a  wound — A  reminiscence  of  South.  'And  if  the 
conscience  has  not  wholly  lost  its  native  tenderness,  it  will  not  only  dread 
the  infection  of  a  wound,  but  also  the  aspersion  of  a  blot.'  Sermon  Ixiv 
(Deliverance  from  Temptation  the  Privilege  of  the  Righteous). 

1.  29.  ennobled  whatever  it  touched.  An  allusion  to  the  well-known 
expression  in  Johnson's  Epitaph  on  Goldsmith,  usually,  but  incorrectly, 
quoted  as  '  Nihil  tetigit  quod  non  ornavit.' 

1.  30.  lost  half  its  evil,  &c.  One  of  Burke's  old  phrases,  borrowed  from 
the  essayists.  In  Sett,  in  America,  vol.  i.  p.  200,  he  says  that  civilisation, 
if  it  has  '  abated  the  force  of  some  of  the  natural  virtues,'  by  the  luxury 
which  attends  it,  has  '  taken  out  likewise  the  sting  of  our  natural  vices,  and 
softened  the  ferocity  of  the  human  race  without  enervating  their  courage.' 
Cp.  p.  163,  1.  3.  So  Fourth  Letter  on  Regicide  Peace;  'The  reformed 
and  perfected  virtues,  the  polished  mitigated  vices,  of  a  great  capital.'  Cp. 
generally  with  this  famous  passage  the  following  from  the  Fourth  Letter 
on  a  Regicide  Peace ;  '  Morals,  as  they  were — decorum,  the  great  outguard 
of  the  sex,  and  the  proud  sentiment  of  honour,  which  makes  virtue  more 
respectable  where  it  is,  and  conceals  human  frailty  where  virtue  may  not  be, 
will  be  banished  from  this  land  of  propriety,  modesty,  and  reserve.'  The 
passage  is  cleverly  plagiarised  by  Macaulay,  Ess.  on  Hallam ;  '  We  look  in 
vain  for  those  qualities  which  lend  a  charm  to  the  errors  of  high  and  ardent 
natures,  for  the  generosity,  the  tenderness,  the  chivalrous  delicacy,  which 
ennoble  appetites  into  passions,  and  impart  to  vice  itself  a  portion  of  the 
majesty  of  virtue.'' 


NOTES.  339 

p.  90,  1.  3.  It  is  this  which  has  given  its  character  to  modern  Europe. 
'  Chivalry,  uniting  with  the  genius  of  our  policy,  has  probably  suggested 
those  peculiarities  in  the  law  of  nations  by  which  modern  states  are  dis- 
tinguished from  the  ancient.'  Dr.  Fergusson's  Essay  on  the  History  of  Civil 
Society  (1767),  p.  311. 

1.  19.  obedience  liberal.     Vol.  i.  p.  233,  1.  I. 

1.  21.  bland  assimilation  =  digestion.  Two  of  Milton's  phrases  are  here 
blended.     Par.  Lost,  v.  4,  5,  4x2. 

1.  24.  superadded  ideas,  &c.  Bowles,  in  his  Verses  to  Burke,  says  of 
chivalry — 

•  Her  milder  influence  shall  she  still  impart. 
To  decorate,  but  not  disguise,  the  heart : 
To  nurse  the  tender  sympathies  that  play 
In  the  short  sunshine  of  life's  early  way ; 
For  female  worth  and  meekness  to  inspire 
Homage  and  love,  and  temper  rude  desire.* 

decent  drapery  of  life,  &,c.  The  notion  is  Johnson's.  'Life,'  he  would 
say,  *  is  barren  enough  surely,  with  all  her  trappings :  let  us  therefore  be 
cautious  how  we  strip  her.'  Mrs.  Piozzi's  Anecdotes.  It  is  curious  to  trace 
here  the  influence  which  Johnson,  with  his  zeal  for  subordination,  his  hatred 
to  innovation,  and  his  reverence  for  the  feudal  times,  exercised  upon  Burke 
in  his  early  years. 

1.  26.  which  the  heart  owns,  and  the  understanding  ratifies.  There  seems 
here  to  be  a  renjiniscence  of  Bishop  Horsley's  Sermon  on  the  Poor  (Sermon 
xxxv).  May  18,  1786;  'For  although  I  should  not  readily  admit  that  the 
proof  of  moral  obligation  cannot  in  any  instance  be  complete  unless  the 
connection  be  made  out  between  the  action  which  the  heart  naturally 
approves,  and  that  which  a  right  understanding  of  the  interests  of  mankind 
would  recommend,  (on  the  contrary — to  judge  practically  of  right  and 
wrong,  we  should  feel  rather  than  philosophise ;  and  we  should  act  from 
sentiment  rather  than  from  policy)  yet  we  surely  acquiesce  with  the  most 
cheerfulness  in  our  duty,  when  we  perceive  how  the  useful  and  the  fair  are 
united  in  the  same  action.' 

P.  91,  1.  9.  cold  hearts  and  muddy  understandings.  A  good  parallel  to 
Burke's  observations  on  the  philosophers  is  to  be  found  in  the  fourth  Book 
of  the  Dunciad,  which  shadows  forth  the  ruin  of  society  by  men  furnished 
with 

'A  brain  of  feathers  and  a  heart  of  lead,' 

Pope  and  Burke  agree  in  making  moral  and  intellectual  decay  proceed 
together  under  the  delusion  of  improvement. 

L  II.  laws  to  be  supported  only  by  their  own  terrors  .  .  .  nothing  is 
left  which  engages  the  affections.  On  this  subject  see  the  wise  doctrines  of 
Bishop  Horsley,  Sermon  xii. 

1.  15.  visto.     See  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  115,  1.  29, 

nothing  but  the  gallows.  A  curious  coincidence  with  an  old  Italian  poet ; 
Z  2 


340  NOTES. 

*Vanno  al  giardino 

Risiede  in  mezzo  il  paretaio  de  Nemi 
D'un  pergolato,  il  quale  a  ogni  corrente 
Sostien,  con  quattro  braccia  di  cavezza 
Penzoloni,  che  sono  una  bellezza.' 

Lippi,  Malmantile  Racquistato,  cant.  vi.  st.  50. 
'  Paretaio  de  Nemi '  is  slang  for  gallows  or  gibbet. 
1.  18.  mechanic  =  mechzmc3.\,  in  malam  partem. 

I.  26.  Non  satis  est,  &c.  Hor.  de  Arte  Poet.  99.  A  '  Spectator '  motto 
(No.  321).     Cp.  p.  237,  1.  20  sqq. 

1.  31.  But  power,  &c.  If  in  the  concluding  sentence  we  read  '  rulers '  for 
•  kings,'  we  have  a  forcible  statement  of  an  ordinary  historical  process,  which 
was  about  to  be  repeated  in  France. 

P.  92,  1.  3.  by  freeing  kings  from  fear,  &c.  The  idea  is  borrowed  from 
Hume ;  '  But  history  and  experience  having  since  convinced  us  that  this 
practice  (tyrannicide)  increases  the  jealousy  and  cruelty  of  princes,  a  Timoleon 
and  a  Brutus,  though  treated  with  indulgence  on  account  of  the  prejudice  of 
their  times,  are  now  considered  as  very  improper  models  for  imitation,' 
Dissertation  on  the  Passions.  It  may  be  remarked  that  Burke  follows  the 
fashion  of  his  age,  in  treating  '  kings '  as  a  poh'tical  species.  Selden,  more 
profound  in  his  distinctions,  says,  '  Kings  are  all  individual,  this  or  that  king : 
there  is  no  species  of  kings.' 

1.  9.  Kings  will  be  tyrants,  &c.  This  paragraph  is  quoted  by  Dr.  Whately, 
in  his  Rhetoric,  as  a  fine  example  of  Method.     Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  58, 

1.25- 

1.  17.  prosperous  state  .  .  .  owing  to  the  spirit  of  our  old  manners. 
Cp.  the  reflections  of  Cicero  at  the  beginning  of  the  Fifth  Book  of  the 
Republic,  which  commences  with  the  line  of  Ennius, 

'  Moribus  antiquis  res  stat  Romana  virisque.' 

1.  25.  Nothing  is  more  certain,  &c.  The  addition  made  to  this  conclu- 
sion by  Hallam,  though  not  insisted  on  by  Burke  in  the  present  passage,  is 
quite  consonant  with  his  general  views ;  '  There  are,  if  I  may  say  so,  three 
powerful  spirits,  which  have  from  time  to  time  moved  over  the  face  of  the 
waters,  and  given  a  predominant  impulse  to  the  moral  sentiments  and 
energies  of  mankind.  These  are  the  spirits  of  liberty,  of  religion,  and 
of  HONOUR.  It  was  the  principal  business  of  chivalry  to  cherish  the  last 
of  these  three.'     Middle  Ages,  chap.  ix.  part  ii. 

1.  27.  this  European  world  of  ours.  The  First  Letter  on  a  Regicide 
Peace  contains  a  remarkable  description  of  the  unity  of  law,  education, 
and  manners  in  the  Europe  of  the  Middle  Ages.  '  No  citizen  of  Europe 
could  be  altogether  an  exile  in  any  part  of  it.  There  was  nothing  more 
than  a  pleasing  variety  to  recreate  and  instruct  the  mind,  to  enrich  the 
imagination,  and  to  meliorate  the  heart.  When  a  man  travelled  or  resided 
for  health,  pleasure,  business,  or  necessity,  from  his  own  country,  he  never 
felt  himself  quite  abroad.' 


NOTES.  341 

P.  93,  1.  8.  trodden  down  under  the  hoofs  of  a  swinish  multitude.  The 
idea  is  derived  from  St.  Matthew  vii.  6.  The  much  resented  expres- 
sion '  swinish  multitude '  afterwards  became  a  toast  with  the  English 
Jacobins. 

1.  32.  This  note,  together  with  those  printed  at  pp.  131,  132,  134,  135, 
168,  seems  to  have  been  added  by  a  subsequent  editor  from  a  copy  of  the 
work  used  by  the  author  in  his  last  years. 

P.  94,  1.  6.  whether  you  took  them  from  us.  Such  a  view  is  incon- 
sistent with  a  comparative  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  English  and  continental 
history.  Burke  perhaps  alludes  to  the  legendary  chivalry  of  the  Court  of 
Arthur,  of  which  Brittany  had  its  share. 

1.  7.  to  you — we  trace  them  best.  Mr.  Hallam  calls  France  '  the  fountain 
of  chivalry.* 

1.  8.  gentis  incunabula  nostra,  (cunabula.)  Virg.  Aen.  iii.  105.  The 
writer  perhaps  had  in  mind  the  expression  of  Cicero,  '  Montes  patrios, 
incunabula  nostra.'     Ep.  Att.  ii.  15. 

1.  9.  when  your  fountain  is  choaked  up,  &c.  This  presage  has  not  been 
verified.  England  and  Germany  are  likely  to  transmit  to  future  generations 
much  that  is  worth  preserving  of  the  spirit  of  chivalry. 

1.18.  a  revolution  in  sentiments,  &c.  '  II  y  a  une  revolution  g^nerale  qui 
change  le  gout  des  esprits,  aussi  bien  que  les  fortunes  du  monde.'  Roehe- 
foucault,  Maximes.  Burke  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  present  one 
amounted  to  a  '  revolution  in  the  constitution  of  the  human  mind.'  The 
fact  is  that  the  sentimental  basis  on  which  the  estimation  of  political 
institutions  rested  was  passing  away.  The  true  way  of  regarding  the 
question  is  in  the  light  of  the  change  in  English  public  opinion  between 
1815-1830. 

1.  22.  forced  to  apologize,  &c.  Notice  the  keenness  and  strength  of 
the  expression. 

1.  26.  For  this  plain  reason.    The  phrase  is  from  Pope's  Essay  on  Man. 

1.  27.  because  it  is  natural,  cp.  p.  102,  1.  2. 

P.  95, 1.  4.  Our  minds  are  purified,  &c.  From  the  well-known  definition 
of  Tragedy  in  the  Poetics  of  Aristotle,  ch.  vi.  2.  The  work  on  the  Sublime 
and  Beautiful  shows  traces  of  the  study  of  the  Poetics.  Cp.  also  Rhet.,  Lib. 
ii.  ch.  8 ;  Pol.,  Lib.  viii.  7.  3. 

L  12.  Garrick  .  .  .  Siddons.  Burke  was  an  enthusiastic  lover  of  the 
stage.  The  former  famous  actor  was  among  his  most  cherished  friends. 
Fourth  Letter  on  Regicide  Peace  ;  '  My  ever  dear  friend,  Garrick,  who  was 
the  most  acute  observer  of  nature  I  ever  knew.' 

1.  26.  as  they  once  did  in  the  antient  stage.  The  allusion,  as  clearly 
appears  by  the  context,  is  to  the  '  hypothetical  proposition'  put  by  Euripides 
into  the  mouth  of  Eteocles  (Phoen.  524)  ; 

(intp  yap  dSiKHV  XP^>  TvpavviBos  vtpt 
KaWiarov  aiiKHv,  raXXa  S'  (vae^iiv  XP^^- 
Cicero  (De  OflT,  iii,  ai)  says  that  Csesar  often  repeated  these  lines.     But 


34^  I^OTES. 

Burke's  memory  fails  him  when  he  says  that  the  Athenian  audience  'rejected' 
them.  Those  which  they  thus  condemned  were  the  more  harmless  ones 
which  occurred  in  a  speech  of  Bellerophon  ; 

€t  6'  17  Kvnpis  ToiovTOV  6(p9a\ij.oTs  opf, 
oi)  davfx,  epairas  fivpiovs  avr^v  Tpe({>eiv, 
See  Seneca,  Epist.  115,  Dindorf,  Fr.  Eur.  No.  288,  and  Schlegel's  Dramatic 
Literature,  Lect.  viii. 

P.  96,  1.  17.  fear  more  dreadful  than  revenge.  A  striking  prophecy  of 
the  horrors  of  the  Reign  of  Terror. 

P.  97,  1.  I.  to  remit  his  prerogatives,  and  to  call  his  people  to  a  share  of 
freedom.  If  we  regard  the  transactions  between  the  king  and  the  parliament 
of  Paris,  this  is  a  clear  misrepresentation.  Such  remissions  of  prerogative 
had  been  wrested  from  the  king  by  the  parliament.  That  body  charged  the 
king  with  having  formed  a  fixed  system  for  the  overthrow  of  the  established 
constitution,  which  had  been  in  train  ever  since  1771-  Burke,  however, 
alludes  to  the  institution  of  the  provincial  assemblies,  and  the  work  done  by 
,  the  Assembly  of  Notables  (the  abolition  of  the  corvee,  and  of  the  restrictions 
on  internal  traffic,  especially  that  in  corn).  The  Notables  also  had  before 
them  a  project  for  abolishing  the  gahelles. 

1.  6.  provide  force  .  .  .  the  remnants  of  his  authority.  Alluding  to  the  arrest 
of  magistrates. 

1.  14.  look  up  with  a  sort  of  complacent  awe,  &c.  The  allusion  is 
evidently  to  Frederick  the  Great. 

1.  16.  know  to  keep  firm,  &c.  =  know  how.  The  expression  is  French. 
'  II  est  affreux,'  says  Mounier,  '  penser  qu'  avec  une  ame  moins  bienfaisante, 
un  autre  prince  eut  peut-etre  trouve  les  moyens  de  maintenir  son  pbuvoir.' 
Rech.  sur  les  causes,  &c.,  p.  25. 

1.  21.  /£s/«(i'=  enlisted. 

1.  32.  with  truth  been  said  to  be  consolatory  to  the  human  mind.  The 
allusion  is  to  the  fine  chorus  in  Samson  Agonistes ; 

'  O  how  comely  it  is,  and  how  reviving 
To  the  spirits  of  just  men  long  oppress'd, 
When  God  into  the  hands  of  their  deliverer 
Puts  invincible  might,'  &c. 

P.  98,  1.  3.  Louis  the  Eleventh.  The  founder  of  the  absolute  system 
completed  by  Louis  XIV.  His  character  abundantly  indicates  the  genuine 
tyrant.     See  Commines,  and  the  '  Scandalous  Chronicle.' 

Charles  the  Ninth.  Who  authorised  and  took  a  personal  part  in  the 
massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  1572, 

1.  5.  murder  of  Patkul.  The  Livonian  patriot,  surrendered  to  him  under 
a  treaty  by  Augustus  of  Poland,  and  judicially  murdered  in  l7o7'  See 
Voltaire's  History  of  Charles  XII. 

1.  6.  murder  of  Monaldeschi.  An  Italian  gentleman  who  had  been  a 
favourite  of  the  queen,  but  in  revenge  for  neglect  had  composed  a  book  in 
which  her  intrigues  were  unveiled.     She  had  him  dragged  into  her  presence, 


NOTES.  •  343 

and  then  and  there  assassinated,  Oct.  lo,  1657.  Leibnitz,  to  his  disgrace, 
was  among  the  apologists  for  this  crime,  which  took  place  at  Foutainebleau. 

1.  8.  King  of  the  French.  So  the  king  was  styled  after  the  4th  of 
August.  The  title  of  King  of  France  was  thought  to  savour  of  feudal 
usurpation. 

1.  32.  flower-de-luce  on  their  shoulder.  Alluding  to  the  scandalous  stories 
of  the  Queen  of  France  brought  over  by  those  about  the  court.  The  fleur- 
de-lis  was  the  royal  badge. 

1.  33.  Lord  George  Gordon  fast  in  Newgate.  This  mischievous  maniac 
had  been  convicted  June  6,  T787,  amongst  other  things  for  a  libel  on  the 
queen  of  France :  but  before  the  time  fixed  for  coming  up  to  receive 
sentence,  he  made  off  to  the  continent.  He  soon  returned,  and  in  August 
took  up  his  residence  in  one  of  the  dirtiest  streets  in  Birmingham,  when  he 
became  a  proselyte  to  the  religion,  and  assumed  the  dress  and  manners  of 
the  Jews.  He  was  arrested  there  on  the  7th  of  December  on  a  warrant  for 
contempt  of  court,  and  committed  to  Newgate,  where  his  freaks  were  for 
some  time  a  topic  of  public  amusement,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  contem- 
porary newspapers. 

1.  34.  public  proselyte.  He  had  assumed  the  name  and  style  of  the  Right 
Hon.  Israel  Bar  Abraham  George  Gordon.  He  nourished  a  long  beard,  and 
refused  to  admit  to  his  presence  any  Jew  who  appeared  without  one.  See  a 
ridiculous  letter  on  the  subject  in  the  Public  Advertiser,  Oct.  16,  1789. 

P.  99,  1.  3.  raised  a  mob,  &c.  This  is  a  mild  description  of  the  terrible 
No-Popery  riots.  On  the  evening  of  Tuesday,  June  6,  1780,  six-and-thirty 
fires  were  to  be  seen  blazing  in  different  parts  of  London.  '  During  the 
whole  night  men,  women  and  children  were  running  up  and  down  with 
such  goods  and  effects  as  they  wished  most  to  preserve.  The  tremendous 
roar  of  the  authors  of  these  horrible  scenes  was  heard  at  one  instant,  and  at 
the  next,  the  dreadful  reports  of  soldiers'  musquets,  firing  in  platoons,  and 
from  different  quarters ;  in  short,  every  thing  served-  to  impress  the  mind 
with  ideas  of  universal  anarchy  and  approaching  desolation.'     Ann.  Register. 

1.  16.  Dr.  Price  has  shewn  us,  &c.  In  his  Treatise  on  Reversionary  Pay- 
ments, and  other  economical  works. 

P.  100,  1.  6.  near  forty  years.     Burke  arrived  in  London  early  in  1750- 

1.  15.  attempt  to  hide  their  total  want  of  consequence,  &c.  Burke  no 
doubt  had  in  mind  a  passage  in  Kurd's  Sermons  on  Prophecy,  Serm.  xii ;  'A 
few  fashionable  men  make  a  noise  in  the  world :  and  this  clamour,  being 
echoed  on  all  sides  from  the  shallow  circles  of  their  admirers,  misleads  the 
unwary  into  an  opinion  that  the  irreligious  spirit  is  universal  and  uncon- 
trollable.' So  Canning,  Speech  at  Liverpool,  March  18,  1820;  'A  certain 
number  of  ambulatory  tribunes  of  the  people,  self-e!ccted  to  that  high 
function,  assumed  the  name  and  authority  of  whatever  plan  they  thought 
proper  to  select  for  a  place  of  meeting  ;  their  rostrum  was  pitched,  sometimes 
here,  sometimes  there,  according  to  the  fancy  of  the  mob,  or  the  patience 
of  the  magistrates :  but  the  proposition  and  the  proposer  were  in  all  places 


344  •      NOTES. 

nearly  alike ;  and  when,  by  a  sort  of  political  ventriloquism,  the  same  voice 
had  been  made  to  issue  from  half  a  dozen  different  corners  of  the  country,  it 
was  impudently  assumed  to  be  a  "  concord  of  sweet  sounds,"  composing  the 
united  voice  of  the  people  of  England  I' 

1.  20.  grasshoppers  .  .  .  make  the  field  ring  with  their  importunate  chink 
From  Burke's  favourite  author,  Virgil ; 

'  Ubi  quarta  sitim  coeli  coUegerit  hora, 
Et  cantu  querulae  rumpent  arbusta  cicadae.' 

Georg.  iii.  327. 
See  also  Eel.  ii.  13,  Culex  151,  &c.  'Importunate'  is  a  favourite  epithet  o' 
Burke's.  Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  142,  1.  16.  The  illustration  is  a  relic  of  Boccaliiii's 
story  of  the  foolish  traveller  who  dismounted  to  kill  the  grasshoppers  which 
disturbed  his  meditations  as  he  journeyed.  See  The  Craftsman,  No.  73 
(1727). 

1.  22,  thousands  of  great  cattle  .  .  ,  chew  the  cud  and  are  silent.  One  of 
those  quaint  and  strong  images,  so  frequent  in  the  later  writings  of  Burke^ 
which  seem  to  the  modern  critic  ridiculous  or  farfetched.  On  such  points 
Burke  perhaps  has  a  claim  to  be  judged  by  no  other  standard  than  himself. 

1.  34.  /  deprecate  such  hostility.  Rhetorical  occultatio  (cp.  vol.  i.  note  to 
p.  109,  1.  2).  From  p.  182,  1.  13,  we  see  that  Burke  had  already  begun  to 
contemplate  that  crusade  which  he  heralded  in  the  Letters  on  Regicide 
Peace. 

P.  101,  1.  I.  formerly  have  had  a  king  of  France,  &c.  John  the  Good, 
taken  prisoner  at  the  battle  of  Poitiers,  Sept.  19,  1356. 

1.  2.  you  have  read,  &c.     In  the  Chronicle  of  Froissart. 

1.  3.  victor  in  the  field.  Edward  the  Black  Prince.  In  the  last  century, 
when  the  main  object  of  English  policy  was  to  triumph  over  France,  the 
Black  Prince  was  naturally  exalted  into  a  hero  of  the  first  rank.  Cp.  Warton, 
Ode  xviii ; 

'  The  prince  in  sable  steel  that  sternly  frown'd. 
And  Gallia's  captive  king,  and  Cressy's  wreath  renown'd.' 

I.  5.  not  materially  changed.  The  persistence  or  continuity  of  the  English 
national  character  which  Burke  here  hints  at  would  be  no  uninteresting 
matter  of  study.  It  is  perhaps  this,  as  much  as  anything,  which  makes  the 
monuments  of  our  literature,  in  a  degree  far  higher  than  those  of  any  other, 
living  and  speaking  realities.  To  no  Englishman  can  Chaucer  and  Shakspere, 
Addison  and  Fielding,  ever  become  a  dead  letter. 

1.  9.  generosity  and  dignity  of  thinking.  See.  Bolingbroke  speaks  in  this 
strain  of  the  reign  of  Edward  III,  which  was  then  considered  the  acme  of 
Old  English  national  life.     Cp.  Johnson,  '  London '; 

'  Illustrious  Edward  !   from  the  realms  of  day, 
The  land  of  heroes  and  of  saints  survey.' 
More  accurate  history  ranks  this  particular  period  less  highly.  Professor  Stubbs 
considers  it  to  be  characterised  by  a  '  splendid  formal  hollowness  .  .  .  the  life, 
the  genius,  the  spirit  of  all,  fainting  and  wearing  out  under  the  incubus  of 


NOTES.  345 

false  chivalry,  cruel  extravagance,  and  the  lust  of  war '  (Select  Charters,  p. 
418),  A  modern  author  has  said  of  the  specious  attractions  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  that  they  resemble  the  brilliant  colouring  of  some  old  pictures — il  ne 
lew  reste  plus  que  le  vernis.  Touch  them,  and  their  splendour  turns  to  dust. 
Chivalry  was  but  the  perishable  flower  of  national  life :  the  fruit  of  substan- 
tial civilisation  succeeded  it. 

It  is  so  rarely  that  we  can  detect  any  real  variation  of  opinion  in  Burke, 
even  between  his  earliest  and  his  latest  works,  that  it  is  worth  while  to  note 
that  in  the  beginning  of  the  Account  of  European  Settlements  in  America  he 
declares  the  manners  of  Europe  before  the  Renaissance  to  have  been  '  wholly 
barbarous.'  '  A  wild  romantic  courage  in  the  Northern  and  Western  parts 
of  Europe,  and  a  wicked  policy  in  the  Italian  states,  was  the  character  of  that 
age.  If  we  look  into  the  manners  of  the  courts,  there  appear  but  very  faint 
marks  of  cultivation  and  politeness.  The  interview  between  our  Edward  IV 
and  his  brother  of  France,  wherein  they  were  both  caged  up  like  wild  beasts^ 
shews  dispositions  very  remote  front  a  true  sense  of  honour,  or  any  just  ideas 
of  politeness  and  humanity.' 

1.  II.  Subtilized  .  .  .  into  savages.  A  similar  expression  occurs  in  Goguet's 
character  of  the  Spartans,  inserted  by  Burke  in  the  Annual  Register  for 
1760.  In  the  volume  for  1761,  he  alludes  to  this  as  'the  character  of  a 
famous  nation,  improved,  if  we  may  say  so,  by  one  styled  a  Philosopher, 
into  brutes.'  The  Philosopher  is  Lycurgus,  the  idol  of  Rousseau.  'The 
project,'  writes  Mercier,  '  was  to  form  an  entire  new  race  of  men ;  and  we 
have  been  transformed  into  savages.'  New  Picture  of  Paris,  ch.  3.  So 
Matthias,  Pursuits  of  Literature,  iv.  11 ; 

'  But  chief.  Equality's  vain  priest,  Rousseau, 
A  sage  in  sorrow  nursed  and  gaunt  with  woe— 


What  time  his  work  the  citizen  began. 
And  gave  to  France  the  social  savage,  Man.' 

1.  12.  Rousseau  .  .  .  Voltaire  .  .  .  Helvetius.  The  spirit  of  free-thinking, 
which  gives  so  distinct  a  character  to  the  last  century,  was  by  no  means  the 
produce  of  that  century.  It  had  been  militant  for  at  least  two  centuries, 
before  in  the  middle  of  that  century  it  became  triumphant.  It  came  from 
Italy  with  the  Renaissance.  Lanoue,  in  his  Discours  (1585),  calculates  the 
atheists  of  France  at  a  million.  Pere  Mersenne,  in  1636,  reckons  50,000  in 
Paris  alone  ;  'Quae  (Lutetia)  si  luto  plurimum,  multo  tamen  magis  atheismo 
foetet.'  See  more  on  this  subject  in  M.  Aubertin's  Introduction,  and  cp. 
especially  Burton's  section  on  '  Religious  Melancholy  in  defect.' 

1.  16.  no  discoveries  to  be  made  in  morality.  So  in  the  Letter  to  M.  de 
Menonville,  Burke  insists  that  to  effect  a  real  reform,  every  vestige  must  be 
effaced  of '  that  philosophy  which  pretends  to  have  made  discoveries  in  the 
terra  australis  of  morality.'  This  letter  contains  Burke's  final  judgment  on 
Rousseau. 

1.  18.  understood  long  before  we  were  bom,     Cp.  ante,  p.  37i  1.  28. 


34^ 


NOTES. 


1.  20.  silent  tomb  .  .  .  pert  loquacity.     So  the  Anthology ; 

noXA.d  XaXfis,  avOpcunf,  X'^A'^i  Se  Ttflj  ^era  (itKpov, 
Siya,  Kal  fxeXtra  ^wv  exf  tov  OavoTOj'. 

1.  28.  blurred  =  blotted,  scribbled  over. 

1.  31.  real  hearts  cf  flesh,  &c.     Ezekiel  xi.  19. 

P.  102,  1.  20.  many  of  our  men  of  speculation.  Alluding  to  the  school 
of  English  essayists,  with  Addison  at  its  head  ;  and  especially  to  Dr.  Johnson. 
See  especially  the  'World,'  Nos.  112-114.  Lord  Chesterfield's  Essays  in  the 
World,  which  appeared  in  Burke's  younger  days,  evidently  attracted  his 
attention.  The  following  extracts  are  from  No.  112,  which  commences 
with  the  quotation  of  one  of  Bolingbroke's  showy  and  shallow  generalisa- 
tions on  the  subject  of  prejudice,  and  is  interesting  from  its  bearing  on  the 
present  text.  '  It  is  certain  that  there  has  not  been  a  time  when  the  preroga- 
tive of  human  reason  was  more  freely  asserted,  nor  errors  and  prejudices 
more  ably  attacked  and  exposed  by  the  best  writers,  than  now.  But  may 
not  the  principle  of  enquiry  and  detection  be  carried  too  far,  or  at  least 
made  too  general  ?  And  should  not  a  prudent  discrimination  of  cases  be 
attended  to  ?  A  prejudice  is  by  no  means  (though  generally  thought  so)  an 
error;  on  the  contrary,  it  may  be  a  most  unquestioned  truth,  though  it  be 
still  a  prejudice  in  those  who,  without  any  examination,  take  it  upon  trust 
and  entertain  it  by  habit.  There  are  even  some  prejudices,  founded  upon 
error,  which  ought  to  be  connived  at,  or  perhaps  encouraged ;  their  effects 
being  more  beneficial  to  society  than  their  detection  can  possibly  be,  .  .  . 
The  bulk  of  mankind  have  neither  leisure  nor  knowledge  sufficient  to  reason 
right ;  why  then  should  they  be  taught  to  reason  at  all  ?  Will  not  honest 
instinct  prompt,  and  wholesome  prejudices  guide  them,  much  better  than 
half  reasoning  ?  .  .  .  Honest,  useful,  home-spun  prejudices  ...  in  themselves 
undoubted  and  demonstrable  truths,  and  ought  therefore  to  be  cherished 
even  in  their  coarsest  dress.' 

P.  103,  1.  6.  habit  .  .  .  series  of  unconnected  acts.  The  distinction  is  an 
important  part  of  the  moral  system  of  Aristotle,  Eth.,  Lib.  ii.  iii. 

1.  20.  at  inexpiable  war  with  all  establishments.  Cp.  infra,  p.  107,  1.  21. 
See  the  beginning  of  the  famous  article  in  the  Encyclopedic  on  Foundations, 
written  by  Turgot.  There  are  indications  in  subsequent  works  that  Burke 
had  read  it.  The  author,  not  content  with  exposing  the  abuses  and  weak 
points  of  old  establishments,  avowedly  endeavours  '  to  excite  an  aversion  to 
new  foundations.' 

inexpiable  war.  A  curious  expression  of  Livy,  which  seems  to  have  stuck 
in  Burke's  memory.  •  Ex  quibus  pro  certo  habeat,  Patres,  adversus  quos 
tenderet,  bello  inexpiabili  se  persecuturos.'  Lib.  iv.  c.  35.  It  is  repeated  at 
p.  165,  1.  32,  and  in  the  Letter  to  Mr.  Baron  Smith. 

1.  26.  singular  species  of  compact.  Bishop  Horsley,  after  tracing  the 
theory  of  an  original  compact  of  government  to  the  Crito  of  Plato,  says ; 
'  It  is  remarkable  that  this  fictitious  compact,  which  in  modern  times  hath 
been  made  the  basis  of  the  unqualified  doctrine  of  resistance,  should  have 


NOTES.  347 

been  set  up  by  Plato  in  the  person  of  Socrates  as  the  foundation  of  the 
opposite  doctrine  of  the  passive  obedience  of  the  individual.'  Serm.  xliv. 
Jan.  30.  1 793. 

P.  104,  I.  21.  re/used  to  change  their  law,  &c.  Alluded  to  by  Boling- 
broke  in  his  Remarks  on  the  History  of  England.  See  Blackstone,  vol.  iv. 
ch.  8,  and  especially  Milman,  History  of  Latin  Christianity,  Book  xiii.  ch.  6 ; 
'  Parliament  with  one  indignant  voice  declared  the  surrender  of  the  realm  by 
John  null  and  void,  as  without  the  consent  of  Parliament,  and  contrary  to 
the  king's  coronation  oath  (40  Edw.  HI).  .  .  .  Parliament  was  as  resolute 
against  the  other  abuse  (the  possession  of  rich  benefices  by  foreigners). 
The  first  Statute  of  Provisors  had  been  passed  in  the  reign  of  Edward  I 
(35  Edw.  I).  Twice  aheady  in  the  reign  of  Edward  HI  (in  1351  and  1353) 
was  this  law  re-enacted,  with  penalties  rising  above  one  another  in  severity. 
It  was  [now,  1373]  declared  that  the  Court  of  Rome  could  present  to  no 
bishopric  or  benefice  in  England.'  '  In  the  year  1390  (15  Rich.  II)  the 
Commons  extorted  the  renewal  of  the  Statute  of  Provisors  in  the  strongest 
terms.' 

1.  30.  we  must  provide  as  Englishmen.  Cp.  ante,  note  to  p.  11,  1.  6. 
Burke  considered  the  rest  of  Europe  as  '  linked  by  a  contignation '  with  the 
political  edifice  of  France. 

P.  105,  1.  4.  a  cabal  calling  itself  philosophic.  The  term  '  philosophic  ' 
then  implied,  as  it  perhaps  still  does  in  France,  unbelief  in  Christianity. 
Coleridge's  character  of  the  philosophy  brought  into  vogue  by  Voltaire, 
D'Alembert,  Diderot,  &c.,  is  given  here,  not  because  it  is  altogether  just, 
but  because  it  illustrates  the  views  of  Burke,  by  which  it  was  undoubtedly 
inspired ; 

'Prurient,  bustling,  and  revolutionary,  this  French  wisdom  has  never  more 
than  grazed  the  surface  of  knowledge.  As  political  economy,  in  its  zeal  for 
the  increase  of  food,  it  habitually  overlooked  the  qualities  and  even  the 
sensations  of  those  that  were  to  feed  on  it.  As  ethical  philosophy,  it  re- 
cognised no  duties  which  it  could  not  reduce  into  debtor  and  creditor  accounts 
on  the  ledgers  of  self-love,  where  no  coin  was  sterling  which  could  not  be 
rendered  into  agreeable  sensations.  And  even  in  its  height  of  self-com- 
placency as  chemical  art,  greatly  am  I  deceived  if  it  has  not  from  the  very 
beginning  mistaken  the  products  of  destruction,  cadavera  rerum,  for  the 
elements  of  composition  :  and  most  assuredly  it  has  dearly  purchased  a  few 
brilliant  inventions  at  the  loss  of  all  communion  with  life  and  the  spirit  of 
nature.  As  the  process,  such  the  result ! — a  heartless  frivolity  alternating 
with  a  sentimentality  as  heartless — an  ignorant  contempt  of  antiquity — a 
neglect  of  moral  self-discipline — a  deadening  of  the  religious  sense,  even  in 
the  less  reflecting  forms  of  natural  piety — a  scornful  reprobation  of  all 
consolations  and  secret  refreshings  from  above* — and  as   the   caput   mor- 


*  Coleridge   borrows   these    beautiful    expressions    from    the    Chorus    in 
*  Samson  Agonistes.' 


34^  NOTES. 

tuum  of  human  nature   evaporated,  a   French   nature  of  rapacity,  levity, 
ferocity,  and  presumption.'     The  Statesman's  Manual,  Appendix  C. 

I.  15.  Collins  and  Toland,  &c.  All  that  is  worth  knowing  of  these  writers 
may  be  read  in  Mr.  Pattison's  Essay  on  the  '  Tendencies  of  Religious 
Thought  in  England,  1688- 1750.'  The  representative  man  of  the  sect  was 
Tindal.     Cp.  Pope,  Imit.  of  Horace,  i.  6  ; 

*  But  art  thou  one  whom  new  opinions  sway. 
One  who  believes  as  Tindal  leads  the  way? 
Who  virtue  and  a  church  alike  disowns, 
Thinks  that  but  words,  and  this  but  brick  and  stones?' 
1.  17.  Who  now  reads  Bolingbrokef   Cp.  infra,  p.  148,  1.  18.    It  has  been 
remarked  that  Burke  is  ungenerous  to  his  literary  master.      Some,  however, 
consider  his   obligations  to   Bolingbroke  slighter  than  has  been  generally 
supposed,  and  look  upon  Addison  as  his  literary  parent.    Cp.  note  to  p.  102, 
1.  20,  sup.     The  '  Sublime  and  Beautiful '  certainly  bears  the  marks  of  much 
study  of  Addison,  both  as  to  style  and  as  to  matter.     Burke  repeats  his 
opinion  of  Bolingbroke  in  the  First  Letter  on  a  Regicide  Peace  ;   '  When  I 
was  very  young,  a  general  fashion  told  me  I  was  to  admire  some  of  the 
writings   against  that  minister  (Sir  R.  Walpole).     A  little  more  maturity 
taught  me  as  much  to  despise  them.' 

1.  20.  few  successors.     The  allusion  is  to  Hume. 
family  vault  of '  all  the  Capulets.^     Romeo  and  Juliet,  Act  iv.  sc.  I  : 
'  Thou  shalt  be  borne  to  that  same  ancient  vault, 
Where  all  the  kindred  of  the  Capulets  lie.' 
1.  24.  never  acted  in  corps.     With  Burke,  a  sure  sign  of  being  worthless 
and  abnormal  excrescences  of  civil  society.     Vide  '  Present   Discontents.' 
This  observation  on  the  atheistical  freethinkers  is  made  by  Bolingbroke 
himself!     Burke  has  in  mind  the  chorus  in  Samson ; 
'  If  any  be  (atheists)  they  walk  obscure  ; 
For  of  such  doctrine  never  was  there  school. 
But  the  heart  of  the  fool. 
And  no  man  therein  doctor  but  himself.' 
P.  106,   1.   2.  native  plainness  and  directness  of  understanding.     The 
English  are  remarkable  for  a  rooted  dislike  to  all  chicanery  and  sophistica- 
tion.    Good  miscellaneous  illustrations  of  English  character  are  the  author 
of  '  Hudibras,'  as    reflected  in  his  writings,  the  Sir  Roger  de  Coverly  of 
Addison,  the  principal  characters  of  Fielding,  Boswell's  portraiture  of  Dr. 
Johnson,  and  the  '  Christopher  North '  of  Blackwood'r  Magazine  (Professor 
John  Wilson). 

1.  3.  those  who  have  successively  obtained  authority  among  us.  Burke 
evidently  alludes  to  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  Lord  Chatham,  and  Lord  Rocking- 
ham, denying,  by  implication,  the  same  merit  to  those  who  had  been  in 
power  since  Rockingham's  death. 

1.  10.  no  rust  of  superstition,  &c.     So  Bacon,  Essay  of  Atheism;  'I  had 


NOTES.  349 

rather  believe  all  the  Fables  in  the  Legend,  and  the  Talmud,  and  the  Alcoran, 
than  that  this  universal  frame  is  without  a  mind.' 

1.  19.  temple  .  .  .  unhallowed  fire.  Alluding  to  the  sacred  fire  on  the 
altar  of  Vesta  at  Rome :  possibly  also  to  Numbers,  ch.  xvi. 

1.  26.  Greek — Armenian — Roman—  Protestant.  Burke  speaks  elsewhere 
of  the  '  four  grand  divisions  of  Christianity,'  evidently  intending  the  same  as 
here.  (Letter  to  W.  Smith,  Esq.)  He  was  of  opinion  that  the  '  three 
religions,  prevalent  more  or  less  in  various  parts  of  these  islands,  ought  all, 
in  subordination  to  the  legal  establishments,  as  they  stand  in  the  several 
countries  to  be  countenanced,  protected,  and  cherished ;  and  that  in  Ireland 
particularly  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  should  be  upheld  in  high  respect 
and  veneration  .  .  .  and  not  tolerated  as  an  inevitable  evil.'  The  character 
of  Burke  by  Shackleton,  who,  it  should  be  remembered,  was  a  Quaker, 
contains  the  following  remarkable  passage ;  '  He  believes  the  Papists  wrong, 
he  doubts  if  the  Protestants  are  altogether  right.  He  has  not  been  favoured 
to  find  that  church  which  would  lead  him  to  the  indubitable  certainty  of 
true  religion,  undefiled  with  the  mixture  of  human  inventions.'  We  trace 
here  the  line  of  thought  which  was  adopted  by  Coleridge,  and  carried  into 
practice  by  Irving.     Cp.  the  Doctrine  of  Toleration,  infra,  pp.  177,  178. 

P.  108,  1.  3.  in  antient  Rome.  The  allusion  is  to  the  constitution  of  the 
Decemvirate ;  the  state  visited  was  Athens,  in  the  time  of  Pericles.  Niebuhr 
discredited  the  story,  but  afterwards  retracted  his  opinion. 

I.  6.  our  church  establishment.  No  student  of  history  will  allow  this  to 
be  a  fair  statement  of  contemporary  public  opinion.  It  is  totally  opposed 
to  the  views  of  the  Warburtonian  school,  which  included  the  most  thoughtful 
and  practical  churchmen  of  the  time. 

II.  15,  17.  august  fabric  .  .  .  sacred  temple.  The  'templum  in  modum 
arcis '  of  Tacitus,  speaking  of  the  temple  of  Jerusalem,  which  is  alluded  to 
in  the  passage  quoted  in  note  to  p.  30,  1.  14, 

P.  109,  1.  20.  act  in  trust.     Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  52, 1.  27. 

1.  34.  Janissaries.     Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  29, 1.  q. 

P.  110,  1.  15.  the  most  shameless  thing,  &c.  Cp.  Dryden's  Satire  on  the 
Dutch.  See  the  arguments  of  the  Athenians  to  the  Melians,  Thucydides, 
Book  v.  ch.  85. 

1.  18.  the  people  at  large  never  ought,  &c.  Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  6,  p.  192,  &c. 
*  Quicquid  multis  peccatur  inultum  est,'  Lucan,  Phars.  v.  260.  The  quotation 
had  been  employed  by  Burke  in  his  appeal  for  mercy  on  behalf  of  the  con- 
victed rioters  of  1 780.     He  often  appeals  to  the  general  doctrine. 

1.  29.  false  shew  of  liberty — '  Falsa  species  libertatis,'  from  the  passage  in 
Tacitus  (Hist.  i.  l)  quoted  in  vol.  i.  p.  60,  1.  23. 

P.  Ill,  1.  II.  will  and  reason  the  same.  The  doctrine  that  reason  and 
will  are  identical  in  the  Divine  mind  is  a  conclusion  of  the  Schoolmen  often 
used  by  the  English  theologians. 

1.  27.  confer  that  power  on  those  only,  &c.     Cp.  p.  47, 1.  14  sqq. 

1.  32.  Life-renters.  Tenants  for  life,  i.e.  those  who  are  entitled  to  receive 
the  rents  for  life. 


350  NOTES. 

P.  112,  1.  3.  cut  off  the  entail.  The  usual  expression  for  formally  de- 
priving persons  on  whom  settlements  have  been  made,  of  the  benefit  of 
such  settlements.  By  an  entaii,  strictly  speaking,  property  is  settled  on 
persons  and  the  heirs  of  their  bodies :  but  cutting  off  the  entail  also  defeats 
all  the  supplementary  contingent  interests. 

commit  waste.  The  technical  term  for  permanent  injury  done  on  a  landed 
estate,  as  by  pulling  down  houses,  cutting  timber,  &c. 

1.  12.  link  with  the  other.     Cp.  ante,  p.  39. 

1.  14.  science  of  jurisprudence.  In  the  First  Letter  on  a  Regicide  Peace, 
Burke  says  that  Lord  Camden  shared  his  views  on  this  point.  '  No  man, 
in  a  public  or  private  concern,  can  divine  by  what  rule  or  principle  her 
judgments  are  to  be  directed ;  nor  is  there  to  be  found  a  professor  in  any 
university,  or  a  practitioner  in  any  court,  who  will  hazard  an  opinion  of  what 
is  or  is  not  law  in  France,  in  any  case  whatever.'  He  goes  on  to  remark 
on  that  disavowal  of  all  principles  of  public  law  which  outlawed  the  French 
Republic  in  Europe. 

1.  16.  collected  reason  of  ages.  A  similar  vindication  of  law  from  the 
wit  of  a  pert  sciolist  is  attributed  to  Dr.  Johnson.  See  that  of  Blackstone, 
vol.  iii.  ch.  22. 

L  20.  Personal  self-sufficiency.  Sec.     So  Daniel ; 

'  For  self-opinion  would  be  seen  more  wise 

Than  present  counsels,  customs,  orders,  laws; 
And  to  the  end  to  have  them  otherwise 

The  Commonwealth  into  confusion  draws. 
As  if  ordain'd  to  embroil  the  world  with  wit. 
As  well  as  ^rossness  to  dishonour  it.' 

Chorus  to  Tragedy  of  Philotas. 

P.  113,  1.  16.  that  no  man  should  approach,  &c, 

'  If  ancient  fabrics  nod  and  threat  to  fall. 
To  patch  their  flaws,  and  buttress  up  the  wall, 
So  far  is  duty ;    but  here  fix  the  mark : 
For  all  beyond  it,  is  to  touch  the  ark.' 

Dryden,  Abs.  and  Achit. 

L  23.  hack  that  aged  parent  in  pieces.  So  in  Speech  on  Parliamentary 
Reform,  1782;  'I  look  with  filial  reverence  on  the  constitution  of  my 
country,  and  never  will  cut  it  in  pieces,  and  put  it  into  the  kettle  of  any 
magician,  in  order  to  boil  it,  with  the  puddle  of  their  compounds,  into 
youth  and  vigour.'  Alluding  to  the  legend  of  the  daughters  of  Pelias, 
King  of  Thessaly,  who  '  by  the  counsel  of  Medea,  chopped  him  in  pieces, 
and  set  him  a  boiling  with  I  know  not  what  herbs  in  a  cauldron,  but  could 
not  revive  him  again,'  Hobbes,  De  Corpore  Politico,  Part  ii.  cap.  8. 
Hobbes,  like  Burke,  uses  the  story  to  illustrate  '  cutting  the  Common- 
wealth in  pieces,  upon  pretence  or  hope  of  reformation.'  Cowley  employs 
it  in  a  similar  way.  in  his  famous  Essay  on  the  Government  of  Oliver 


NOTES.  351 

Cromwell.     It  was  an  obvious  illustration  of  events  in  1789.     Cp.  infra, 
note  to  p.  149,  1.  22,  and  p.  256,  1.  13. 

P.  114,  1.  4.  //  is  a  partnership,  &c.  A  fine  example  of  Burke's  way  of 
taking  an  abused  abstract  principle,  and  correcting  it  in  its  application, 
while  he  enlarges  and  intensifies  its  signification.  Burke  exposes  the 
fallacies  involved  in  the  French  use  of  the  term  Societe,  which  literally 
means  '  partnership '  as  well  as  '  society.' 

1.  7-  cannot  be  obtained  in  many  generations.  The  germs  of  this  profound 
argument  are  to  be  found  in  Cicero,  but  it  was  never  put  in  shape  so  ably, 
nor  enforced  so  powerfully,  as  in  the  present  passage. 

P.  115,  1.  12.  '  Quod  illi  principi,'  &c.  From  the  dream  of  Scipio,  Cic. 
de  Rep.,  Lib.  vi.  The  passage  is  used  as  a  motto  on  the  title-page  of 
Vattel's  Law  of  Nations,  a  favourite  authority  of  Burke's, 

1.  16.  of  the  head  and  heart,     Cp.  ante,  p.  90,  1.  26. 

great  name — Scipio. 

1.  1 7.  greater  name — Cicero. 

1.  25.  cas/  =  caste,  birth. 

P.  116,  1.  6.  oblation  of  the  state  itself,  as  a  worthy  offering,  8cc.  Perhaps 
a  reminiscence  of  a  passage  in  the  Communion  Service. 

1.  9.  dignity  of  persons.  The  allusion  is  to  the  various  ecclesiastical  dig- 
nitaries from  the  Bishop  downwards. 

P.  118,  1.  14.  as  ample  and  as  early  a  share — modern  world.  Burke 
uses  the  word  modern  in  its  strict  sense  =  the  world  of  to-day.  The  'ample 
and  early  share '  is  not  intended  to  extend  beyond  the  age  of  Hooker  and 
Bacon.  In  any  more  extended  sense,  except  in  the  names  of  a  few  School- 
men, and  very  rare  cases  like  Chaucer,  it  would  be  difficult  to  justify  the 
claim. 

P.  119,  1.  10.  estate  of  the  church  .  .  .  private  property.  In  his  Speech 
on  the  Petition  against  the  Acts  of  Uniformity  (1772),  Burke  maintained 
the  contrary.  He  then  held  that  the  church  was  a  voluntary  society, 
favoured  by  the  State,  and  endowed  by  it  with  the  tithes  as  a  public  tax. 

1.  15.  Euripis.  The  strait  between  Boeotia  and  Eubcea.  The  Mediter- 
ranean being  in  general  almost  tideless,  the  periodical  rise  and  fall  of  the 
water  here  and  in  the  Straits  of  Messina  was  a  standing  puzzle  to  the 
ancients. 

funds  and  actions.  'Actions'  Fr.  =  shares  in  a  joint  stock.  (German 
Actien.) 

1.  23.  mere  invention,  &c.  Cp.  the  well-known  line,  'Si  Dieu  n'existait 
pas,  il  faudrait  I'inventer.' 

1.  32.  preached  to  the  poor.     St.  Luke  vii.  22,  &c. 

P.  120,  1.  4.  miserable  great  (great  =  rich,  powerful).  'Great  persons,' 
says  South,  '  unless  their  understandings  are  very  great  too,  are  of  all  others 
the  most  miserable.'     So  Gray,  Ode  to  Spring ; 

'  How  vain  the  ardour  of  the  crowd — 

How  low,  how  little  are  the  proud, 

How  indigent  the  great!' 


$S^  NOTES. 

1.  21.  TTiey  too  are  among  the  unhappy.  Crabbe  consoles  the  poor  man 
by  enumerating  some  of  the  sorrows  of  the  rich ; 

'  Ah !    go  in  peace,  good  fellow,  to  thine  home, 
Nor  fancy  these  escape  the  general  doom ; 
Gay  as  they  seem,  be  sure  with  them  are  hearts 
With  sorrow  tried,  there's  sadness  in  their  parts ; 
If  thou  could'st  see  them,  when  they  think  alone. 
Mirth,  music,  friends,  and  these  amusements  gone; 
Could'st  thou  discover  every  secret  ill  ' 

That  pains  their  spirit,  or  resists  their  will ; 
Could'st  thou  behold  forsaken  love's  distress, 
Or  envy's  pang  at  glory  or  success,  ' 

Or  beauty,  conscious  of  the  spoils  of  time. 
Or  guilt  alarm'd  when  memory  shows  the  crime ; 
All  that  gives  sorrow,  terror,  grief  and  gloom — 
Content  would  cheer  thee  trudging  to  thine  home.' 

Crabbe,  '  Amusements.' 
personal  pain.  The  pleasure  of  wealth,  says  South,  is  so  far  from  reaching 
the  soul,  that  it  scarce  pierces  the  skin.  '  What  would  a  man  give  to 
purchase  a  release,  nay,  but  a  small  respite  from  the  extreme  pains  of 
the  gout  or  stone?  And  yet,  if  he  could  fee  his  physician  with  both  the 
Indies,  neither  art  nor  money  can  redeem,  or  but  reprieve  him  from  his 
misery.  No  man  feels  the  pangs  and  tortures  of  his  present  distemper  (be 
it  what  it  will)  at  all  the  less  for  being  rich.  His  riches  indeed  may 
have  occasioned,  but  they  cannot  allay  them.  No  man's  fever  burns  the 
gentler  for  his  drinking  his  juleps  in  a  golden  cup.'  See  the  rest  of  this,  the 
concluding  argument  of  the  fine  sermon  '  On  Covetousness.' 

1.  26.  range  without  limit.  This  reminds  us  something  of  Pascal's  gloomy 
observations  on  the  secret  instinct  which  leads  man  to  seek  diversion  and 
employment  in  something  outside  himself. 

P.  121, 1.  6.  The  people  of  England  know,  &c.  These  considerations  are 
repeated  from  earlier  Church  politicians.  '  Where  wealth  is  held  in  so  great 
admiration  as  generally  in  this  golden  age  it  is,  that  without  it  angelical 
perfections  are  not  able  to  deliver  from  extreme  contempt,  surely  to  make 
bishops  poorer  than  they  are,  were  to  make  them  of  less  account  and 
estimation  than  they  should  be.'  Hooker,  Eccl.  Pol.,  Book  vii.  ch  xxiv. 
19.  So  also  South,  Sermon  iv.  (Ecclesiastical  Policy  the  Best  Policy) : 
'The  vulgar  have  not  such  logical  heads,  as  to  be  able  to  abstract  such 
subtile  conceptions  as  to  separate  the  man  from  the  minister,  or  to  consider 
the  same  person  under  a  double  capacity,  and  so  honour  him  as  a  divine, 
while  they  despise  him  as  poor.  .  .  Let  the  minister  be  abject  and  low, 
his  interest  inconsiderable,  the  Word  will  suffer  for  his  sake.  The  message 
will  still  find  reception  according  to  the  dignity  of  the  messenger.'  Swift, 
Project  for  the  Advancement  of  Religion ;  *  It  so  happens  that  men  of 
pleasure,  who  never  go  to  church,  nor  use  themselves  to  read  books  of  de- 


NOTES.  ^^^ 

votlon,  form  their  ideas  of  the  clergy  from  a  few  poor  strollers  they  oftert 
observe  in  the  streets,  or  sneaking  out  of  some  person  of  quality's  house, 
where  they  are  hired  by  the  lady  at  ten  shillings  a  month.  .  .  .  And  let 
some  reasoners  think  what  they  please,  it  is  certain  that  men  must  be 
brought  to  esteem  and  love  the  clergy  before  they  can  be  persuaded  to  be 
in  love  with  religion.  No  man  values  the  best  medicine,  if  administered  by 
a  physician  whose  person  he  haites  and  despises.' 

1.  14.  If  the  poverty  were  voluntary,  &c.  Hazlitt,  Essay  on  the  Want  of 
Money :  '  Echard's  book  on  the  Contempt  of  the  Clergy  is  unfounded.  It 
is  surely  sufficient  for  any  set  of  individuals,  raised  above  actual  want,  that 
their  characters  are  not  merely  respectable,  but  sacred.  Poverty,  when  it  is 
voluntary,  is  never  despicable,  but  takes  an  heroical  aspect.' 

1.  22.  Those  who  are  to  instruct  presumptuous  igtiorance,  &c.  'With 
what  a  face  shall  a  pitiful  underling  encounter  the  solemn  looks  of  an 
oppressing  grandee?  With  what  hope  of  success  shall  he  adventure  to 
check  the  vicious  extravagances  of  a  ruffling  gallant?  Will  he  dare  to 
contradict  the  opinion,  or  disallow  the  practice  of  that  wealthy  or  this 
powerful  neighbour,  by  whose  alms,  it  may  be,  he  is  relieved,  and  supported 
by  his  favour?'  Barrow,  Consecration  Sermon  on  Ps.  cxxxii.  16.  For  a 
remarkable  instance  of  the  indebtedness  of  modern  politicians  to  Burke,  com- 
pare with  this  passage  Sir  R.  Peel's  Speech  at  the  Glasgow  Banquet,  1837. 

1.  29.  No !  we  will  have  her  to  exalt  her  mitred  front,  &c.  '  Christ 
would  have  his  body,  the  church,  not  meagre  and  contemptible,  but  re- 
plenished and  borne  up  with  sufficiency,  displayed  to  the  world  with  the 
beauties  of  fulness,  and  the  most  ennobling  proportions.'  South,  Post- 
humous Sermons,  No.  ii. 

P.  122,  1.  9.  They  can  see  a  bishop  of  Durham,  &c.  The  argument 
is  from  what  he  elsewhere  calls  '  the  excellent  queries  of  the  excellent 
Berkeley.'  '  If  the  revenues  allotted  for  the  encouragement  of  religion 
and  learning  were  made  hereditary  in  the  hands  of  a  dozen  lay  lords, 
and  as  many  overgrown  commoners,  whether  the  public  would  be 
much  the  better  for  it  ? '  Queries,  No.  340.  Similarly  Swift,  Arguments 
against  Enlarging  the  Power  of  the  Bishops ;  '  I  was  never  able  to  imagine 
what  inconvenience  would  accrue  to  the  public  by  one  thousand  or  two 
thousand  a  year  being  in  the  hands  of  a  protestant  bishop,  any  more 
than  of  a  lay  person.  The  former,  generally  speaking,  lives  as  piously 
and  hospitably  as  the  other,  pays  his  debts  as  honestly,  and  spends 
as  much  of  his  revenue  amongst  his  tenants ;  besides,  if  they  are  his 
immediate  tenants,  you  may  distinguish  them  at  first  sight,  by  their  habits 
and  horses,  or,  if  you  go  to  their  houses,  by  their  comfortable  way  of 
living.' 

1.  13.  this  Earl,  or  that  Squire.  The  argument  is  wittily  amplified  by 
Sydney  Smith,  in  his  Second  Letter  to  Archdeacon  Singleton :  '  Take,  for 
instance,  the  Cathedral  of  Bristol,  the  whole  estates  of  which  are  about 
equal  to  keeping  a  pack  of  foxhounds.     If  this  had  been  in  the  hands  of  a 

VOL.  II.  A  a 


354  NOTES. 

country  gentleman,  instead  of  Precentor,  Succentor,  Dean,  and  Canons,  and 
Sexton,  you  would  have  had  huntsman,  whipper-in,  dog-feeders,  and  stoppers 
of  earths  ;  the  old  squire,  full  of  foolish  opinions,  and  fermented  liquids,  and 
a  young  gentleman  of  gloves,  waistcoats,  and  pantaloons ;  and  how  many 
generations  might  it  be  before  the  fortuitous  concourse  of  noodles  would 
produce  such  a  man  as  Professor  Lee,  one  of  the  Prebendaries  of  Bristol,  and 
by  far  the  most  eminent  Oriental  scholar  in  Europe?' 

1.  1 4.  So  many  dogs  and  horses  are  riot  kept,  &c.  The  reader  might 
fancy  he  had  Cobbett  before  him  instead  of  Burke.  Burke  was  a  true  friend 
to  the  poor  who  lived  near  his  estate.     See  Prior's  Life  of  Burke,  ch.  xiv. 

1.  18.  It  is  better  to  cherish,  &c.  The  principle  had  been  put  forth 
by  Bishop  Horsley  in  his  Sermon  on  the  poor  not  ceasing  out  of  the 
land  (Deut.  xv.  ii).  May  18,  1786.  He  maintains  that  the  best  and 
most  natural  mode  of  relief  is  by  voluntary  contributions.  'The  law 
should  be  careful  not  to  do  too  much.' 

1.  26.  Too  much  and  too  little  are  treason  against  property.  This 
striking  aphorism  is  a  type  peculiar  to  Burke.  Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  1 24, 
J.I. 

P.  123,  1.  16.  We  shall  believe  those  reformers,  &c.  '  If  they  abuse 
the  goods  of  the  Church  unto  pomp  and  vanity,  such  faults  we  do  not 
excuse  in  them:  only  we  wish  it  to  be  considered  whether  such  faults 
be  verily  in  them,  or  else  but  objected  against  them  by  such  as  gape 
after  spoil,  and  therefore  are  no  competent  judges  of  what  is  moderate 
and  what  is  excessive.  ...  If  the  remedy  for  the  disease  is  good,  let 
it  be  unpartially  applied.  Interest  reipuhlicae  ut  re  sua  quisque  bene  utatur. 
Let  all  states  be  put  to  their  moderate  pensions,  let  their  livings  and 
lands  be  taken  away  from  them,  whosoever  they  be,  in  whom  such  ample 
possessions  are  found  to  have  been  matters  of  grievous  abuse ;  were  this 
just?  would  noble  families  think  this  reasonable?'  Hooker,  Eccl.  Pol., 
Book  vii.  xxiv.  24.     So  Crabbe,  '  Religious  Sects:' 

*"In  pomp,"  they  cry,  "is  England's  Church  arrayed, 
Our  cool  reformers  wrought  like  men  afraid  — 
We  would  have  pulled  her  gorgeous  temples  down. 
And  spurned  her  mitre,  and  defiled  her  gown — 
We  would  have  trodden  low  both  bench  and  stall. 
Nor  left  a  tiihe  remaining,  great  or  small  I " 
Let  us  be  serious — should  such  trials  come, 
Are  they  themselves  prepared  for  martyrdom?* 

P.  124,  1.  3.  cup  0/ their  abominations.     Revelation  of  St.  John,  xvii.  4. 

1.  8.  selfish  enlargetnent  of  mind,  &c.     Cp.  note  to  vol.  i.  p.  87,  1.  16. 

L  30.  harshly  driven — harpies  of  usury.  The  allusion  is  to  Virg.  Aen. 
iii.  212,  sqq. 

P.  125,  I.  21.  academies  of  the  Palais  Royal.  The  court  yard  of  the 
Palais  Royal,  surrounded  by  restaurants  and  shops,  was  and  is  still  a  noted 
place  of  meeting — the    Forum   of  stump-orators   and  newsmongers.     Mr. 


NOTES.  S55 

Carlyle  names  it  Satan-at-Jiome,     The   Club   of  Jacobins  took  their  after 
wards  too  famous  name  from  meeting  in  the  hall  of  a  convent  of  monks  of 
the  order  of  St.  James  of  Compostella. 

P.  126,  1.  27.  dungeons  and  iron  cages  of  their  old  masters.  The 
allusion  is  to  the  cruelties  of  Louis  XI,  thus  described  by  Commines :  '  II 
est  vray  qu'il  avoit  fait  de  rigoureuses  prisons,  comme  cages  de  fer  et  autres 
de  bois,  couvertes  de  plaques  de  fer  par  le  dehors  et  par  le  dedans,  avec 
terribles  ferrures  de  quelques  huict  pieds  de  large,  et  de  la  hauteur  d'un 
homme  et  un  pied  de  plus.  Le  premier  qui  les  devisa  fut  I'evesque  de 
Verdun,  qui  en  la  premiere  qui  fut  faite  fut  mis  incontinent,  et  y  a  couche 
quatorze  ans.'     Mem.  Liv.  vi.  ch.  12. 

P.  129,  1.  2.  Family  settlements.  In  French  technical  language,  substitu- 
tions Jidei-commissaires,  see  p.  264,  1.  33  (to  be  distinguished  from  the  use 
of  these  terms  in  the  civil  law).  Several  coutumes,  however,  including  those 
of  Normandy  and  Brittany,  disallowed  them.  The  law  on  the  subject  had 
been  fixed  by  an  ordinance  in  174 1.  In  the  Encyclopedie  they  are  regarded 
like  many  other  institutions,  as  useful  in  their  day,  but  unsuited  to  the  age. 
The  writer  of  the  article  approves  the  English  restrictions  on  settlements, 
which  forbid  their  operation  beyond  the  life  of  a  person  living  at  the  time 
when  they  are  made,  and  twenty-one  years  after.  *0n  dit  que  le  droit 
coutumier  d'Angleterre  abhorre  les  successions  a  perpetuite ;  et  en  conse- 
quence, elles  y  sont  plus  limitees  que  dans  aucune  autre  monarchic  de 
I'Europe.'  The  writer  also  looks  enviously  on  the  protection  to  leaseholders 
against  entails,  which  was  peculiar  to  Britain,  In  France  the  protection  of 
the  leaseholder  against  heirs  and  purchasers  formerly  extended  only  to  nine 
years  from  the  commencement  of  the  lease,  Louis  XIV.  having  fixed  this 
short  limit  in  order  to  make  the  tax  on  alienations  more  frequently  exigible. 
Among  the  reforms  of  Turgot,  this  period  had  been  increased  to  twenty- 
seven  years,  but  the  Encyclopedist  considers  this  too  short. 

1.  4.  the  jus  retractus  =  droit  de  retrait,  or  right  of  recovery,  usually  known 
as  prelation.  The  French  law  admitted  more  than  twenty  species  of  this 
right,  the  most  important  of  which  were  the  Retrait  Seigneurial  and  the 
Retrait  Lignager.  By  the  former  the  lord  could  at  any  time  compulsorily 
repurchase  alienated  lands  which  had  once  formed  part  of  his  fief.  By  the 
latter  the  heirs  of  a  landowner  could  similarly  repurchase  any  portion  of 
their  ancestors'  estates  which  he  had  alienated.  These  rights  prevailed  not 
only  in  the  pays  coutumiers,  but  in  the  pays  de  droit  ecrit.  Cp.  the  Assise  of 
Jerusalem. 

mass  of  landed  property  held  by  the  crown  ,  .  ,  unalienably.  The  private 
estates  of  the  monarch  had  formerly  been  distinguished  from  the  crown 
estates,  and  could  be  alienated :  but  after  the  Ordinance  of  Moulins 
(Ordonnance  du  domaine,  1566)  the  distinction  disappeared,  and  all  estates 
which  came  in  any  way  to  the  monarch  were  united  to  the  crown  lands. 
The  policy  of  non-alienation,  however,  dates  from  a  time  anterior  to  St. 
Louis.     It  was  one  of  the  weakest  points  of  the  ancien  regime,  and  was 

A  a  2 


35^ 


NOTES. 


ably  attacked  in  the  Traite  de  la  Finance  des  Remains,  1 740,  before  the 
Encyclopedists  brought  forward  their  arguments  against  it,  and  Turgot 
formed  his  wise  plan  for  abolishing  it.  The  crown  lands  were  often 
alienated,  but  such  alienations  were  always  subject  to  the^ws  retractus. 

1.  6.  vast  estates  of  the  ecclesiastic  corporations.  Their  wealth  had  been 
much  exaggerated.  Some  estimated  it  at  one  half,  others  at  one  third,  of 
the  rental  of  the  kingdom.  Condorcet,  in  his  Life  of  Turgot,  estimates  it  at 
less  than  a  fifth. 

1.  26.  not  nohle  or  newly  noble.  '  Les  gens  d'esprit  et  les  gens  riches 
trouvaient  done  la  noblesse  insupportable;  ct  la  plupart  la  trouvaient  si 
insupportable  qu'ils  finissaient  par  I'acheter.  Mais  alors  commen^ait  pour 
eux  un  nouveau  genre  de  supplice  ;  ils  etaient  des  anoblis,  des  gens  nobles, 
mais  n'etaient  pas  gentilshommes.'     Rivarol,  Journal  Politique. 

P.  130,  1.  26.  two  academies  of  France.  The  famous  Academic  des 
Sciences  (^The  Academy),  and  the  Academic  des  Inscriptions,  so  called  because 
its  special  office  was  the  devising  of  inscriptions  in  honour  of  the  grand 
Monarque,  and  in  celebration  of  his  various  civil  and  military  triumphs. 

1.  28.  vast  undertaking  of  the  Encyclopaedia.  Commenced  in  i'j~,l  by 
Diderot  and  D'Alembert.  There  had  been  Encyclopaedias  ever  since  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century :  but  the  present  work,  in  which  may  be 
traced  the  first  form  of  '  Positivism,'  purposed  to  purge  the  world  of  know- 
ledge and  practice  of  all  that  was  obsolete  or  prejudicial.  It  was  republished 
(1782  sq.)  in  sections,  under  the  title  of  Encyclopedic  Methodique.  'It 
was  intended  to  comprise  sketches,  at  once  accurate  and  elementary,  of  the 
subjects  of  human  knowledge :  and  to  exhibit  the  most  certain,  the  most 
useful  and  important  truths,  in  the  different  branches  of  science.  It  was 
besides  to  contain  a  discussion  of  every  question  that  interests  the  learned  or 
the  humane ;  opinions  of  the  greatest  universality  or  celebrity,  with  the 
origin  and  progress  of  those  opinions,  and  the  arguments,  whether  just  or 
fallacious,  on  which  they  had  been  supported.'  Condorcet,  Life  of  Turgot, 
ch.  ii.  It  might  have  been  added  that  the  work  was  based  on  the  labours 
of  Ephraim  Chambers,  and  was  at  first  intended  to  be  little  more  than  a 
translation  of  his  dictionary. 

1.  31.  pursued  with  a  degree  of  zeal,  &c.  See  Rousseau's  Essay  on  the 
Sciences. 

P.  131,  1.  17.  bigotry  of  their  own.  The  tone  of  the  Encyclopedic, 
however,  is  far  removed  from  open  bigotry.  The  English  Jacobins  outdid 
their  models.  The  London  Corresponding  Society  are  said  to  have  resolved 
that  the  pernicious  belief  in  a  God  was  to  be  an  exception  to  their  general 
principle  of  toleration  !  (Sir  J.  Mackintosh,  in  the  British  Critic,  Aug.  1800). 
Burke's  meaning  is  well  amplified  by  Dr.  Liddon :  '  Religion  does  not  cease 
to  influence  events  among  those  who  reject  its  claims :  it  excites  the  strongest 
passions,  not  merely  in  its  defenders,  but  in  its  enemies.  The  claim  to  hold 
communion  with  an  unseen  world  irritates,  when  it  does  not  win  and  satisfy. 
Atheism  has  again  and  again  been  a  fanaticism :  it  has  been  a  missionary 


NOTES.  357 

and  a  persecutor  by  turns ;  it  is  lashed  into  passion  by  the  very  presence  of 
the  sublime  passion  to  which  it  is  opposed.'  Some  Elements  of  Religion, 
Lect.  i. 

1.  28.  desultory  and  faint  persecution.  Alluding  to  the  proceedings  against 
the  Encyclopedists,  commenced  when  seven  volumes  had  been  published,  and 
weakened  by  being  carried  on  by  two  parties  so  opposite  as  Jesuits  and 
Jansenists.  The  former  had  proposed  to  contribute  the  theological  articles, 
and  were  piqued  at  being  repulsed.  The  Parliament  of  Paris  in  the  end 
appointed  a  commission  to  supervise  the  publication.  It  is  remarkable  that 
the  article  on  the  Soul,  which  was  riiarked  in  the  Memoires  as  the  most 
offensive  of  all,  was  proved  to  have  been  written  by  a  licen*iate  of  the 
Sorbonne,  whose  orthodoxy  was  unimpeachable !  This  persecution  caused  a 
closer  union  between  most  of  the  members  of  the  secte  Encyclopedique,  but 
it  deprived  them  of  the  assistance  of  others,  in  particular  of  Turgot. 

P.  132,  I.  29.  in  their  satires.  See  the  smaller  works  of  Voltaire, 
Diderot,  &c. 

P.  134,  1.  10.  new  morality.  The  term  was  dBopted  by  Canning  as  a 
title  for  his  well-known  satirical  poem  in  the  Anti-jacobin. 

1.  22.  comptrollers-general.  Burke  might  have  excepted  from  this 
sweeping  denunciation  one  who  lost  the  office,  in  part  from  the  desperate 
opposition  of  the  bankers  whom  his  predecessors  employed  —  Turgot. 
When  Turgot  had  to  resign,  and  his  prudent  and  liberal  policy  was  reversed, 
there  was  but  one  way  in  France.  It  was  rather  the /rtrniffrs-general  who 
should  have  been  thus  stigmatised. 

1.  26.  Mr.  Laborde.  Jean  Joseph  (Marquis)  de  Laborde,  a  wealthy 
merchant  of  Bayonne,  employed  extensively  as  a  banker  and  financial  con- 
tractor by  the  government  of  Louis  XV,  first  in  the  Seven  Years'  War.  He 
■was  a  Spaniard  by  birth,  his  proper  name  being  Dort.  He  took  the  name 
of  Laborde  from  an  estate  with  which  the  marquisate  urged  on  him  by  the 
Due  de  Choiseul  was  connected.  He  acquired  enormous  wealth,  chiefly, 
perhaps,  as  Burke  hints,  by  his  public  jobs.  He  retired  from  affairs  on  the 
disgrace  of  Choiseul.  He  was  condemned  during  the  Reign  of  Terror  for 
the  exportation  of  bullion,  with  the  supposed  intent  of  depreciating  assignats, 
and  guillotined  i8th  April,  1794. 

1.  31.  Duke  de  Choiseul.  Minister  1758-1770.  Alluded  to  in  vol.  i. 
p.  42. 

P.  135,  1.  4.  to  have  been  in  Paris,  &c.  The  circumstance  is  again 
alluded  to,  in  connection  with  the  partition  of  Poland,  in  the  Second  Letter 
on  a  Regicide  Peace.     See  next  note. 

1.  5.  Duke  d'Aiguillon.  The  richest  seigneur  in  France,  after  the  king, 
and  one  of  the  few  members  of  the  noblesse  who  took  up  the  cause  of  the 
Revolution  in  the  Assembly,  He  had  been  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  to 
Louis  XV,  after  the  disgrace  of  Choiseul.  He  is  immortal  in  history  owing 
to  the  fact  that  from  his  supine  and  miserable  policy,  no  opposition  was 
offered  to  the  partition  of  Poland,  always  an  instrument  of  France,  and  whose 


35^ 


NOTES. 


ruin  decided  action  on  the  part  of  France,  might,  it  was  thonght,  have 
prevented.  '  Si  Choiseul  avail  ete  encore  la,'  said  Louis  XV,  '  ce  partage 
n'aurait  pas  eu  lieu.'  He  distinguished  himself  in  his  latter  years,  during 
which  he  was  entrusted  with  the  government  of  Brittany,  by  hiding  himself 
in  a  mill,  when  the  English  landed  at  St.  Cast,  and  coming  out  upon  their 
repulse,  '  covered,  not  with  glory,  but  with  flour.'  The  '  Livre  Rouge '  says 
that  he  twice  nearly  occasioned  a  civil  war  and  the  ruin  of  the  state,  and 
twice  escaped  the  scaffold. 

1.  7.  protecting  despotism.  The  protecting  hand  was  that  of  Madame  du 
Barry. 

1.  10.  The  noble  family  of  Noailles  had  long  been  servants.  Sec.  For  two 
centuries  and  a  half.  The  Marechal  de  Noailles  had  especially  been  distin- 
guished in  the  War  of  the  Austrian  Succession,  1742-1748,  and  afterwards 
as  a  minister.  His  son  Louis,  due  de  Noailles,  was  notorious  as  a  private 
agent  of  Louis  XVL  One  of  his  sayings  is  worth  quoting.  Louis  had  said 
that  the  farmers-general  were  the  support  of  the  state :  '  Oui,  Sire — comme 
la  corde  soutient  le  pendif*  He  died  shortly  after  the  execution  of  the  King, 
and  his  widow,  daughter,  and  granddaughter  were  afterwards  guillotined, 
July  23,  1794.  Burke  here  alludes  particularly  to  the  Vicomte  de  Noailles, 
a  younger  son,  who  took  a  prominent  part,  together  with  the  Due  d'Aiguillon, 
in  the  debates  of  the  Assembly,  particularly  in  the  proceedings  of  the  4th  of 
August. 

1.  14.  Dulie  de  Rochefouccdt.  Frangois  Alexandre  Frederic,  due  de 
Rochefoucauid-Liancourt,  often  called  due  de  Liancourt,  eminent  as  a 
political  economist. 

1.  18.  make  a  good  use,  &c.  See  Arthur  Young's  Travels  in  France, 
vol.  i.  p.  62. 

1.  21.  his  brother.  See  foot-note.  Dominique  de  la  Rochefoucauld,  the 
Archbishop,  was  descended  from  a  poor  and  unconsidered  branch  of  the 
family.  He  was  President  of  the  Order  of  the  Clergy  in  the  States-general 
of  1789. 

1.  30.  crudelem  illam  Hastam.  Cicero,  alluding  to  the  sales  under  the 
confiscations  of  Sylla  :  '  Nee  vero  unquam  bellorum  civilium  semen  et  causa 
deerit,  dum  homines  perditi  hastam  illam  cruentam  et  meminerint  et  spera- 
bunt.'  De  Officiis,  ii.  8,  29.  So  Fourth  Philippic,  4,  9 :  '  Quos  non  ilia 
infinita  hasta  satiavit.' 

P.  136,  1.24.  Harry  the  Eighth.  'Harry'  is  simply  the  ancient  and 
French  way  of  pronouncing  '  Henry.' 

1.  29.  rob  the  abbies.  Mr.  Hallam  is  of  opinion  that  the  alienation  of  the 
abbey  lands  was  on  the  whole  beneficial  to  the  country.  His  opinion  was 
probably,  however,  modified  by  his  doctrine  that  the  property  of  a  corporate 
body  stands  on  a  different  footing  from  that  of  private  individuals.  Boling- 
broke  considers  it  a  politic  measure. 

P.  141,  1.  33.  an  offer  of  a  contribution.  The  Archbishop,  on  behalf  of 
the  clergy,  ofltered  an  unconditional  surrender  of  the  tithes,  if  they  were 


NOTES.  359 

allowed  to  keep  the  church  lands.  This  compromise  was  dfscountenanced 
by  Sieyes. 

P.  143,  1.  20.  Bank  of  discount.  The  Caisse  d'Escompte,  planned  by  the 
masterly  statesman  Turgot,  while  Comptroller-general,  and  carried  out  by 
his  successor. 

P.  144,  1.  5.  old  independent  judicature  0/  the  parliaments.  The  position 
of  king,  parliaments,  and  people,  will  be  best  understood  from  the  words  of 
Motinier :  '  Dans  le  plupart  des  etats  de  I'Europe,  les  differens  pouvoirs  se 
sent  livres  des  combats  a  mort,  ou  ont  fait  des  traites  de  partage,  de  sorte 
que  les  sujets  savent  clairement  quels  sont  ceux  qui  ont  le  droit  de  comman- 
der, et  dans  quels  cas  ils  doivent  obeir.  La  France  seule,  peut-etre,  offroit  le 
spectacle  extraordinaire  de  deux  autorites  alternalivement  victorieuses  ou 
soumises,  concluant  des  treves,  mais  jamais  de  traites  definitifs ;  et  dans  le 
choc  de  leurs  pretentions,  dictant  au  peuple  des  volont^s  contraires.  Ces 
deux  autorites  etoient  celle  du  roi  et  celle  des  parlements  ou  tribunaux 
superieurs.'     Recherches  sur  les  causes,  &c.,  pp.  10,  11. 

P.  145,  1.  10.  sort  of  fine.  Alluding  to  the  practice  of  granting  leases 
for  lives  or  years  at  low  rents,  in  consideration  of  2ifine,  or  lump  sum  paid 
down  at  the  commencement  of  the  term. 

1. 12.  sort  of  gift.  '  Gift '  (donum)  is  used  in  the  technical  sense  in  feudal 
law.  The  word  dedi  usually  implied  services  to  be  rendered  by  the  donee 
and  his  heirs  to  the  donor  and  his  heirs.  It  was  of  wider  comprehension 
than  other  terms,  and  was  considered  by  lawyers  '  the  aptest  word  of 
feoffment.' 

1.  18.  waste.     See  note  p.  112,  1.  3,  supra. 

1.  19.  hands  habituated  to  the  gripings  of  usury.  Burke  evidently  has  in 
mind  the  soucars  of  India.     See  Speech  on  Nabob  of  Arcot's  Debts. 

P.  146,  1.  4.  advocates  for  servitude.  Burke  here  answers  by  anticipation 
the  reproaches  which  the  work  brought  upon  him  from  the  English  Whigs 
and  Revolutionists. 

1.  16.  hereditary  wealth.  .  .  .  dignity.     The  House  of  Lords. 

1.  19.  permanent  organ.     The  House  of  Commons. 

1.  28.  pure  democracy  .  .  .  only  tolerable  form.  The  austere  doctrine  of 
Sieyes.  It  may  now  be  said  that  the  thinking  world  of  Europe  has 
thoroughly  unlearnt  this  speculative  dogma,  the  product  of  superficial 
knowledge  and  superficial  reasoning. 

P.  147,  1. 1,  direct  train.  .  .  .  oligarchy.  The  presage  was  fulfilled  by  the 
establishment  of  the  Fifth  of  Fructidor  (the  Directory). 

1.  4.  I  reprobate  no  form  of  government,  &c.  The  opinions  contained  in 
these  lines  are  developed  in  the  Appeal  from  the  New  to  the  Old  Whigs. 
'  He  (Mr.  Burke)  never  abused  all  republics.  He  has  never  professed  himself 
a  friend  or  an  enemy  to  republics  or  to  monarchies  in  the  abstract.  He 
thought  that  the  circumstances  and  habits  of  every  country,  which  it  is  always 
perilous  and  productive  of  the  greatest  calamities  to  force,  are  to  decide  upon 
the  form  of  its  government.     There  is  nothing  in  his  nature,  his  temper,  or 


^ 


360 


NOTES. 


his  faculties,  which  should  make  him  an  enemy  to  any  republic,  modern  or 
ancient.  Far  from  it.  He  has  studied  the  form  and  spirit  of  republics  very 
early  in  life;  he  has  studied  them  with  great  attention;  and  with  a  mind 
undisturbed  by  affection  or  prejudice.  He  is  indeed  convinced  that  the 
science  of  government  would  be  poorly  cultivated  without  that  study.  But 
the  result  in  his  mind  from  that  investigation  has  been,  and  is,  that  neither 
England  nor  France,  without  infinite  detriment  to  them,  as  well  in  the  event 
as  in  the  experiment,  could  be  brought  into  a  republican  form ;  but  that 
■everything  republican  which  can  be  introduced  with  safety  into  either  of 
them,  must  be  built  upon  a  monarchy.'  The  history  of  political  senti- 
ment in  both  countries  amply  justifies  this  view. 

1.  7.  very  few,  and  very  particularly  circumstanced.  The  Swiss  confedera- 
tion still  survives,  and  the  kingdom  of  the  Netherlands  is  really  a  republic,  as 
it  was  formerly  in  Burke's  time.  The  republics  of  Genoa  and  Venice  were 
also  in  existence  when  Burke  wrote.  The  Italian  republics  established  by 
Bonaparte  (the  Ligurian,  Cisalpine,  Roman,  Parthenopean,  &c.)  were  of 
short  duration. 

1.  1 1,  better  acquainted  with  them.  And  their  verdict  was  unanimously 
against  them.  A  study  of  Thucydides,  Plato,  and  Aristotle  will  prove  how 
little  homage  pure  democracy  met  with  from  the  best  minds  of  the  age 
when  it  was  best  understood. 

1.  25.  learned  friend.     No  doubt.  Dr.  French  Laurence. 

P.  148,  1.  18.  Bolingbroke.  .  .  .  presumptuous  and  superficial  writer. 
See  note  ante,  p.  105,  1.  17.  Not  only  Burke,  but  Pitt,  learnt  much  from 
Bolingbroke.  Pitt  was  recommended  by  his  father  to  study  parts  of 
Bolingbroke's  writings,  and  get  them  by  heart. 

1.  21.  one  observation.  'Among  many  reasons  which  determine  me  to 
prefer  monarchy  to  every  other  form  of  government,  this  is  a  principal  one. 
When  monarchy  is  the  essential  form,  it  may  be  more  easily  and  more  use- 
fully tempered  with  aristocracy,  or  democracy,  or  both,  than  either  of  them, 
when  they  are  the  essential  forms,  can  be  tempered  with  monarchy.  It 
seems  to  me,  that  the  introduction  of  a  real  permanent  monarchical  power, 
or  anything  more  than  the  pageantry  of  it,  into  either  of  these,  must  destroy 
them  and  extinguish  them,  as  a  greater  light  extinguishes  a  less.  Whereas 
it  may  easily  be  shewn,  and  the  true  form  of  our  government  will  demon- 
strate, without  seeking  any  other  example,  that  very  considerable  aristo- 
cratical  and  dcmocratical  powers  may  be  grafted  on  a  monarchical  stock, 
without  diminishing  the  lustre,  or  restraining  the  power  and  authority  of 
the  prince,  enough  to  alter  in  any  degree  the  essential  form.' — Patriot  King, 
p.  98.  So  Dean  Lockier  in  Spence's  Anecdotes :  '  Whatever  is  good,  either 
in  monarchies  or  republics,  may  be  enjoyed  in  limited  monarchies.  The 
whole  force  of  the  nation  is  as  ready  to  be  turned  one  way  as  in  [absolute] 
monarchies ;  and  the  liberties  of  the  people  may  be  as  well  secured  as  in 
republics.' 

1.  28.  the  fawning  sycophant  of  yesterday.     Perhaps  a  hard  criticism  on 


NOTES.  361 

some  of  the  savants.  More  than  one  article  of  the  Encyclopedie  was  written 
in  the  palace  of  Versailles. 

P.  149,  1.  6.  full  of  abuses.  Burke  omits  one  most  important  link  in 
the  chain  of  causes  which  led  to  the  Revolution.  The  great  system  of 
abuses  had  been  thoroughly  penetrated,  and  a  comprehensive,  gradual  scheme 
for  remedying  them  had  been  commenced  by  Turgot.  The  principles  which 
guided  this  great  man  in  the  preparation  of  this  scheme  have  been  since  tried, 
affirmed,  and  developed.  They  have  given  the  key  to  the  reforms  of  the 
present  century  in  our  own  and  other  countries.  But  Turgot  was  only 
suffered  to  remain  in  office  twenty  months,  and  nearly  everything  which  he 
had  time  to  effect  was  reversed.  The  interested  classes,  the  nobility,  clergy, 
parliaments,  and  farmers-general,  were  too  strong  for  him.  If  any  body 
could  have  done  what  Burke  blames  the  French  for  not  doing,  it  was  he. 
What  was  left,  but  a  general  convulsion,  proceeding  from  lower  sources,  if 
oppression  was  to  be  thrown  off  at  all  ?  Irritated  by  hesitation,  retrogression, 
and  mistrust,  the  people  had  lost  all  faith  in  their  established  government : 
and  in  dealing  with  the  monarchy,  which  they  wished  in  some  way  to 
preserve,  naturally  went  to  extremes  in  the  safeguards  which  they  provided 
for  the  concessions  they  had  extorted.  Facts  seem  to  strengthen  the  con- 
clusion of  Mackintosh,  that  under  such  circumstances  the  sAoci  of  a  revolution 
is  necessary  to  the  accomplishment  of  great  reforms. 

1.  18.  All  France  was  of  a  different  opinion.  Sec.  True;  but  the  Cahiers 
only  too  clearly  indicated  what  was  smouldering  beneath.  They  repeatedly 
affirm,  on  the  part  of  the  Tiers  Stat,  the  right  of  Property,  and  demand  for 
it  the  protection  of  the  law,  as  a  thing  that  was  in  great  jeopardy.  They 
prove  that  every  principle  of  society  had  been  universally  made  the  subject 
of  question,  and  that  very  various  opinions  were  entertained  as  to  what 
ought  to  be  done.  They  reveal  a  Harringtonian  spirit  in  every  corner  of  the 
kingdom.  No  one  who  reads  them  can  fail  to  see  in  the  '  Declaration  of 
the  Rights  of  Man '  their  inevitable  sequel. 

1.  21.  projects  for  the  reformation,  &c.  More  than  this — they  are  full  of 
abstract  ideas,  of  the  passion  for  definition,  uniformity,  and  paper  govern- 
ment. The  Cahiers,  in  the  briefest  summary  or  index  of  contents,  are 
perfectly  bewildering.  M.  de  Tocqueville  insists,  however,  that  whoso 
wishes  to  understand  the  Revolution,  must  study  incessantly  the  whole  series 
of  folios, 

1.  22.  without  the  remotest  suggestion,  &c.  Calonne  is  nearer  the  mark; 
'  C'est  d'abord  une  puerilite  que  d'argumenter  du  mot  regenerer  le  royaume, 
qui  se  trouve  dans  quelques-uns  des  cahiers,  et  peut-etre  aussi  dans  quelques 
phrases  employees  par  le  Roi ;  comme  si  Ton  pouvoit  en  conclure  que  le  Roi 
et  les  cahiers,  en  se  servant  de  cette  expression  metaphorique,  auroient  en- 
tendu  que  I'Assemblee  devoit  culbuter  la  Monarchie  de  fond  en  comble,  et 
creer  un  gouvernement  absolument  nouveau.  "  Regenerer  "  est  un  terme  de 
religion,  qui  loin  de  presenter  I'idee  d'une  destruction  universelle,  n'annonce 
qu'une  salutaire  vivification.     Le  bapteme  regenere  I'homme  en  effajant  la 


3^2 


NOTES. 


tache  qui  le  souilloit,  et  non  en  detruisant  son  existence ;  mais  dans  le  sens 
de  la  revolution,  regenerer  c'est  aneantir.  Une  telle  interpretation  rappelle 
I'histoire  de  ce  Roi  de  Thessalie  que  ses  fiUes  egorgerent,'  &c.  (Cp.  supra, 
note  to  p.  113,  1.  23.)  People  saw  that  the  kingdom  needed  'regeneration,' 
and  when  they  were  about  it  made  up  their  minds  that  it  should  be  a 
thorough  one. 

1.25.  been  but  one  voice.  This  is  hardly  justifiable.  American  independence 
had  certainly  raised  similar  hopes  in  France.  Nor  would  it  have  been 
possible  for  the  impulse  to  a  republic  to  spring  up  and  ripen  in  so  short  a 
time. 

P.  150,  1.  3.  Tcehmas  Koiili  Khan.  The  military  usurper  whose  exploits 
were  a  romance  to  the  Western  world  in  Burke's  youth,  and  ended  in  the 
national  prostration  of  Persia,  from  which  the  country  has  never  recovered. 

1.  9.  human  race  itself  melts  away  and  perishes  under  the  eye  of  the 
observer.  '  Men  grow  up  thin,'  says  Bacon,  '  where  the  Turcoman's  horse 
sets  his  foot.'  Perhaps  Burke  had  in  mind  the  description  of  the  miraculous 
smiting  of  the  Philistines  by  Jonathan ;  '  And  the  watchmen  of  Saul  in 
Gibeah  of  Benjamin  looked;  and  behold,  the  multitude  melted  away,'  &c. 
I  Sam.  xiv.  16. 

I.  21.  state  of  its  population.  The  increase  of  the  population,  taken  in 
connexion  with  the  inequality  of  imposts,  and  the  burdens  of  the  poor,  ought 
to  have  been  estimated  among  the  causes  of  the  Revolution. 

P.  151,  1.  26.  considerable  tracts  of  it  are  barren.  It  was  calculated  in 
1846  that  nearly  one-seventh  of  the  whole  superficies  consisted  of  unpro- 
ductive expanses  of  sand,  heath,  &c.,  chiefly  lying  near  the  seashores  of 
Gascony  and  Languedoc,  and  in  Champagne  and  French  Flanders. 

1.  30.  Generality  of  Lisle.  A  Generality  was  the  district  under  the  official 
care  of  an  Intendant-general.  Lille  was  populous  because  it  had  been  part 
of  Flanders,  the  flourishing  condition  of  which  as  compared  with  France  was 
conspicuous  in  the  Middle  Ages.  In  Belgium  the  density  of  the  population 
is  still  more  than  double  that  of  the  average  of  France ;  the  former  having 
166,  the  latter  70  inhabitants  to  the  square  kilometre. 

P.  152,  1.  26.  whole  British  dominions.  Burke  only  means  the  British 
Isles. 

P.  153,  1.  9.  species.     Plural. 

P.  154,  1.  5.  when  I  consider  the  face  of  the  kingdom  of  France.  This 
Ciceronian  page  is  well  worth  studying  for  its  method,  and  the  way  in 
which  the  expressions  which  form  the  vehicle  of  the  reflection  are  varied. 
The  force  of  the  argument  is  much  enhanced  by  keeping  in  mind  that  this 
magnificent  face  of  affairs  had  been  mainly  produced  by  the  policy  of 
Louis  XIV.  Thomson's  description  of  the  civilization  of  France  clearly 
afforded  Burke  some  hints : 

....  Diffusive  shot 
O'er  fair  extents  of  land,  the  shining  road : 
The  flood-compelling  arch :    the  long  canal. 


NOTES.  363 

Through  mountains  piercing,  and  uniting  seas: 
The  dome,  resounding  sweet  with  infant  joy, 
From  famine  saved,  or  cruel-handed  shame, 
And  that  where  valour  counts  his  noble  scars.' 

'  Liberty,'  Part  V.  471, 
1.  6.  multitude  and  opulence  of  her  cities.     Then  much  greater  in  com- 
parison with  Britain.     The  British  Isles  now  contain  twice  as  many  towns 
having  more  than  100,000  inhabitants,  as  France. 

1.  7.  useful  magnificence  of  her  spacious  high  roads,  &c.  In  which  respect 
France  was  at  least  half  a  century  in  advance  of  England.  The  principal 
'  grands  chemins  *  were  made  by  the  government  in  the  times  of  Louis  XIV 
and  XV.  It  was  imagined  that  they  might  facilitate  invasion,  an  idea  which 
is  laughed  to  scorn  in  the  Encyclopedic.  It  is  certain  that  they  facilitated 
the  Revolution, 

I.  8.  o/)/!or/««//y  =  opportuneness. 

her  artificial  canals,  &c.  Canals  were  constructed  in  Italy  in  the  eleventh, 
twelfth,  and  thirteenth  centuries,  and  had  an  almost  equally  early  beginning 
in  the  Netherlands.  The  first  French  canal  was  that  of  Briare,  joining  the 
Seine  and  Loire,  begun  in  1605  and  finished  in  1642. 

I.  9.  opening  the  cotivenienc3s  ,  .  .  through  a  solid  continent.  Alluding 
to  the  canal  of  Languedoc,  the  greatest  work  of  the  kind  on  the  continent, 
reaching  from  Narbonne  to  Toulouse,  and  forming  a  communication  between 
the  Atlantic  and  the  Mediterranean.  It  was  begun  and  finished  by  Pierre 
Paul  de  Riquet,  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV,  and  cost  above  1,300,000/. 
sterling.  Corneille,  says  Sir  J.  Stephen,  has  celebrated  the  junction  of  the 
two  seas  in  some  noble  verses,  whose  only  fault  is  that  they  say  far  too  much 
of  Louis  XIV,  and  nothing  at  all  of  Riquet  or  of  Colbert. 

1.  12.  ports  and  harbours  .  ,  .  naval  apparatus,  Efpecially  the  naval 
stations  of  Brest,  Toulon,  and  Cherbourg.  The  navy  of  France  was  another 
creation  of  Colbert's. 

1.  14.  fortifications.  Most  of  them  designed  and  carried  out  at  a  vast 
expense  by  S.  le  Prestre  de  Vauban,  to  whom  and  other  French  writers,  as 
Blondel,  Belidor,  &c.,  modern  fortification  and  military  engineering  in 
general  owe  their  origin  almost  exclusively. 

1.  16.  impenetrable  barrier.  He  has  in  mind  especially  the  'iron  frontier' 
towards  the  Netherlands. 

1.  19.  to  what  complete  perfection,  &c.  Especially  the  vine,  hardly  known 
in  Gaul,  until  the  Roman  conquest. 

1.  22.  in  some  particulars  not  second.  Burke  alludes  to  the  English  silk 
manufacture,  which  was  eclipsed  by  France,  in  consequence,  as  was  shewn 
by  Mr.  Huskisson,  of  the  prohibitive  system  established  in  favour  of  the 
weavers  of  Spitalfields. 

1.  23.  grand  foundations  of  charity.  The  Hotel-Dieu,  Ecole  Militaire,  Inva- 
lides,  &c.,  of  Paris ;  The  Dames  de  la  Charite,  founded  by  St.  Vincent  de  Paul, 
Redemptorists,  Lazarists,  and  the  numerous  bodies  of  Hospitallers,  &c.,  &c. 


3*^4  NOTES. 

1.  24.  slale  of  all  the  arts.  France  in  the  last  century  was  at  the  head 
of  all  Europe  in  the  arts — painting,  architecture,  decorative  design,  and 
music. 

I.  25.  men  she  has  bred,  &c.  It  would  take  up  too  much  space  to  trace 
this  out  in  its  details,  and  compare  France  in  this  respect  with  the  rest  of 
Europe.  It  would  be  an  easy  and  interesting  task  for  the  student.  See  Dr. 
Bridges*  '  Colbert  and  Richelieu,'  where,  however,  the  worth  of  French 
intellect  is  overrated. 

P.  155,  1.  8.  Whoever  has  examined,  &c.  But  the  character  of  the 
monarch  was  against  what  Burke  assumes  to  be  the  spirit  of  the  monarchy. 
'  II  commen^ait  toutes  les  reformes  par  justice,  et  n'en  achevant  aucune  par 
indolence,  et  par  abandon  de  lui-meme,  irritant  la  passion  d'innover  sans  la 
satisfaire,  faisant  entrevoir  le  bien  sans  I'operer.  Roi  populaire  dans  les  rues, 
il  redevenait  Roi  gentilhomme  a  Versailles — reformateur  aupres  de  Turgot  et 
de  Necker,  honteux  de  ses  reformes  dans  la  societe  brillante  et  legere  de 
Marie  Antoinette;  Roi  constitutional  par  gout,  Roi  absolu  par  habitude,' 
&c.— De  Sacy. 

1.  II.  earnest  endeavour  towards  the  prosperity,  &c.  In  spite,  however, 
not  in  consequence,  of  the  institutions  Burke  was  defending.  After  the 
peace  of  1 763  (See  Vol.  i.  '  Present  Discontents ')  a  spirit  of  reformation 
had  sprung  up  and  spread  over  all  parts  of  Europe,  even  to  Constantinople. 
Agriculture  and  trade  had  been  the  special  objects  of  this  movement  in 
France.  '  Another  no  less  laudable  characteristic  (of  the  present  times)  is, 
that  spirit  of  reform  and  improvement,  under  the  several  heads  of  legislation, 
of  the  administration  of  justice,  the  mitigation  of  penal  laws,  the  affording 
some  greater  attention  to  the  ease  and  security  of  the  lower  orders  of  the 
people,  with  the  cultivation  of  those  acts  most  generally  useful  to  mankind, 
and  particularly  the  public  encouragement  given  to  agriculture  as  an  art, 
which  is  becoming  prevalent  in  every  part  of  Europe.'  Annual  Register, 
1786. 

1.  20.  censurable  degree  of  facility.  'If  in  many  respects  the  force  of 
received  opinions  has  in  the  present  times  been  too  much  impaired,  and 
perhaps  too  wide  and  indiscriminate  a  scope  given  to  speculation  on  the 
domains  of  antiquity  and  practice,  it  is,  however,  a  just  cause  of  triumph, 
that  prejudice  and  bigotry  were  the  earliest  victims.  Happy  will  it  be,  if  the 
blows  which  were  aimed  at  the  foundations  and  the  buttresses,  shall  only 
shake  off  the  useless  incumbrances  of  the  edifice.  And  this,  we  are  to  hope, 
will  be  the  case.'     Ibid. 

1.  26.  trespassed  more  by  levity  and  want  of  judgment.  Sec.  For  instance, 
the  attempt  suddenly  to  relieve  the  working  classes  from  the  disadvantages 
imposed  on  them  by  the  system  of  industrial  corporations.  Rash  and  high- 
sounding  promises  on  many  other  points  were  issued  in  the  name  of  the 
King,  which  stimulated  the  opposition  of  the  privileged  classes.  In  the 
quarrel  of  1772  between  the  King  and  the  Parliament  of  Toulouse,  the  latter 
body  accused  the  government  of  endangering  the  people's  means  of  subsist- 


NOTES.  ^6^ 

ence  by  its  rash  measures.  The  King  retorted  that  public  distress  was  caused 
by  the  ambition  of  the  Parliament  and  the  covetousness  of  the  wealthy 
classes.  In  this  way  the  idea  was  thoroughly  worked  into  the  people,  that 
all  their  troubles  were  caused  by  the  interests  of  one  or  other  of  the  powers 
above  them. 

P.  156,  1.  2.  dwell  perpetually  on  the  donation  to  favourites,  &c.  Burke 
alludes  in  the  note  to  the  publication  of  extracts  from  the  famous  Livre  Rouge. 
Calonne  shows  that  of  the  228  millions  of  livres  included  in  the  accounts  of 
this  book  for  sixteen  years,  under  different  ministers,  209  millions  were  ac- 
countable for  on  other  scores  (foreign  subsidies  and  secret  service  money, 
expenses  of  administration,  personal  expenses  of  the  King  and  Queen,  pay- 
ment of  the  debts  of  the  King's  brothers,  indemnities,  &c.).  The  pamphlet 
circulated  with  so  much  industry  is  chiefly  made  up  of  scandalous  reflections 
on  the  persons  pensioned,  and  accounts  of  their  lives  and  services.  We  find 
in  it  under  the  account  of  Mirabeau,  5000  liv.  in  1776  for  the  'MS.  of  a 
work  composed  by  him,  entitled  Des  Letlres  de  Cachet' ;  and  195,000  liv.  in 
1789,  '  upon  his  word  of  honour  [!]  to  counteract  the  plans  of  the  National 
Assembly.* 

1.  10.  told  =  counted.     So  'tale,'  1.  25. 

1.  18.  considerable  emigrations.  This  was  before  the  beginning  of  the 
great  tide  of  emigration,  which  occasioned  the  decree  against  leaving  the 
country,  in  1791,  pronouncing  a  sentence  of  civil  death,  and  confiscation  of 
goods,  against  the  emigrant. 

1.  20.  Circean  liberty.     See  Horn.  Od.  Lib.  x.  &c. 

1.  27.  learned  Academicians  of  Laputa,  &c.  The  satire  of  both  Butler 
and  Swift  was  much  employed  against  what  was  called  '  virtuosodom,'  or  the 
cultivation  of  the  minute  philosophy  and  natural  science,  in  the  infancy  of 
those  pursuits.  Swift  anticipates  with  curious  foresight  the  situation  of  a 
country  under  the  exclusive  dominion  of  philosophers. 

P.  158,  1.  27.  those  of  Germany,  at  the  period,  &c. — i.  e.  after  the  death 
of  Frederick  II,  in  1250.  'Every  nobleman  exercised  round  his  castle  a 
licentious  independence ;  the  cities  were  obliged  to  seek  protection  from 
their  walls  and  confederacies  ;  and  from  the  Rhine  and  Danube  to  the  Baltic, 
the  names  of  peace  and  justice  were  unknown.' — Gibbon. 

I.  30.  Orsini  and  Vitelli.  Perhaps  these  particular  names  were  put  down 
without  sufficient  reflection.  The  Orsini  were  indeed  distinguished  in  the 
twelfth  century  at  Rome  ;  but  the  Vitelli  were  first  known  as  condottieri 
in  the  fifteenth,  and  the  Orsini  derive  their  chief  celebrity  in  the  same  way. 
The  two  families  were  associated  in  resisting  Pope  Alexander  VI.  This  was 
long  after  the  period  when  robber  knights  '  used  to  sally  from  their  fortified 
dens,'  &c.  Burke  apparently,  like  his  translator  Gentz,  thought  they  were 
famous  in  the  wars  of  the  Guelphs  and  Ghibellines. 

1.  32.  Mamalitkes.  Who  constituted  a  military  republic  in  Egypt  and 
Syria. 

Ifayres  on  the  coast  of  Malabar.    The  Nairs  are  the  military  caste  who 


365 


NOTES, 


long  had  the  ruling  power  on  this  coast,  and  are  still  numerous  and  influential. 
They  are  not  strictly  a  noble  caste,  as  Burke  implies,  but,  like  some  other 
low  castes,  have  assumed  the  functions  and  rights  of  a  noble  caste.  They 
were  reduced  in  1 763  by  Hyder  Ali,  by  the  fall  of  whose  son  and  successor, 
Tippoo  Sultan,  before  the  English  arms,  the  Malabar  coast  came  to  the 
East  India  Company. 

P.  159,  1.  2.  Equity  and  Mercy.  Both  were  personified  as  coast  deities 
in  ancient  Rome. 

1,  10.  civil  war  between  the  vices.    Cp.  infra,  p.  188, 1. 1 2,  p.  199, 1. 1 1,  &c. 

1.  23.  breathe  the  spirit  of  liberty  as  warmly,  &c.  Not  universally  true, 
though  not  unjustifiable  as  a  general  statement. 

1.  34.  principles  of  a  British  constitution.  Which  was  proposed  as  a 
model  by  Maury,  Lally-ToUendal,  Mounier,  &c.  The  hostility  of  the 
victorious  party  to  anything  like  the  English  constitution  seemed  a  bond  of 
union  between  them  and  the  English  Jacobins,  at  whom  the  present  work  is 
mainly  levelled. 

P.  160,  1.  23.  never  abandoning  for  a  moment,  &c.  M.  Dupont,  to 
whom  the  work  was  addressed,  objected  to  the  severity  of  this  part  of  the 
character  of  Henry  IV,  and  Burke  in  a  letter  to  him  on  the  subject,  justifies 
his  view.  The  '  scaffold '  (1.  26)  alludes  to  the  execution  of  the  Marechal 
de  Biron.  '  If  he  thought  that  M.  de  Biron  was  capable  of  bringing  on  such 
scenes  as  we  have  lately  beheld,  and  of  producing  the  same  anarchy,  confu- 
sion, and  distress  in  his  kingdom,  as  preliminary  to  the  establishment  of  that 
humiliating  as  well  as  vexatious  tyranny,  we  now  see  on  the  point  of  being 
settled,  under  the  name  of  a  constitution,  in  France,  he  did  well,  very  well, 
to  cut  him  off  in  the  crude  and  immature  infancy  of  his  treasons.  He  would 
not  have  deserved  the  crown  which  he  wore,  and  wore  with  so  much  glory, 
if  he  had  scrupled,  by  all  the  preventive  mercy  of  rigorous  law,  to  punish 
those  traitors  and  enemies  of  their  country  and  of  mankind.  For,  believe 
me,  there  is  no  virtue  where  there  is  no  wisdom.  A  great,  enlarged, 
protecting  and  preserving  benevolence  has  it,  not  in  its  incidents  and 
circumstances,  but  in  its  very  essence,  to  exterminate  vice,  and  disorder,  and 
oppression  from  the  world.'  Correspondence,  iii.  160.  The  letter  is  printed 
at  the  end  of  Dupont's  Translation. 

1.  28.  merited  =  tzTned.     Lat.  mereor. 

P.  161,  1.  18.  beyond  what  is  common  in  other  countries.  The  contrast 
especially  applies  to  England,  where  the  noblesse,  as  a  body,  did  not  exist, 
the  greater  part  of  the  nobility  being  of  middle  class  origin,  and  really 
commoners  with  coronets  on  their  coats  of  arms. 

1.  19.  officious — i.e.  disposed  to  do  kind  services.  So  Dr.  Johnson's 
Epitaph  on  Levett ; 

'  Officious,  innocent,  sincere. 
Of  every  friendless  name  the  friend.' 

1.  30.  to  strihe  any  person,  A  form  of  outrage  never  very  uncommon  in 
this  country. 


NOTES.  357 

1.  33.  attacks  upon  the  property,  &c.  To  this  it  may  be  said  that  it  was 
well  understood  that  the  nobility  possessed  already  so  much  unjust  advan- 
tage, that  such  attacks  were  out  of  the  question,  in  the  existing  state  of 
feeling  and  intelligence  among  the  lower  classes. 

P.  162,  1.  6.  When  the  letting  of  the  land  was  by  rent.  It  would  even 
appear  that  the  tenant  enjoyed  a  security  in  this  respect  unknown  to  English 
law.  '  Pareillement  de  meme  que  la  bonne  foi  ne  permet  pas  au  vendeur  de 
vendre  au-dela  du  juste  prix,  elle  ne  permet  pas  aussi  au  bailleur  d'imposer 
par  le  bail  la  charge  d'une  rente  trop  forte  qui  excede  le  juste  prix  de 
I'heritage.'  Pothier,  Traitt^  du  Contrat  de  Bail  h  Rente,  p.  34.  In  addition, 
the  rent  reserved  on  a  lease  was  commonly  made  redeemable,  by  a  special 
clause,  at  a  specified  sum,  or,  in  default,  at  a  valuation. 

1.  8.  partnership  with  the  farmer.  Known  as  metairie,  the  farmer  being 
called  metayer.  The  usual  form  was  that  the  landowner  advanced  the 
necessary  stock,  seed,  &c.,  for  carrying  on  the  cultivation,  and  received  as 
his  share  one  half  of  the  produce.  This  primitive  contract  is  largely  in  use 
in  India,  Brazil,  and  other  backward  agricultural  countries. 

1.  18.  much  of  the  civil  government,  &c.  See  De  Tocqueville,  De  I'Ancien 
Regime.  The  civil  government  had  passed  almost  entirely  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  nobility  into  that  of  the  central  power ;  and  the  feudal  dues  and 
privileges  which  in  former  times  had  been  cheerfully  yielded  to  them  when 
they  had  the  responsibility  of  administration  and  police,  were  consequently 
grudged  and  resisted. 

1.  30.  A  foolish  imitation.  Sec,  '  Anglomanie,'  which  had  been  increasing 
in  vogue  all  through  the  century.  See  the  anmsing  description  of  it  at  the 
beginning  of  Mr.  Carlyle's  Hist,  of  the  French  Revolution.  Previously  the 
cry  was  against  our  following  the  example  of  the  French, 

*  Whose  manners  still  our  tardy  apish  nation 
Limps  after,  in  base  awkward  imitation.' 

Shakespeare,  Rich.  II. 

P.  163,  1.  7.  Those  of  the  commons,  &c.  Cp.  ante,  note  to  p.  129, 
1.  26. 

1.  13.  less  than  in  Germany.  Where  the  prejudice  still  subsists  in  all  its 
force.  The  first  question  asked  of  a  stranger  in  that  country  is,  '  Sind  Sie 
von  Adel  ? '  The  saying  there  goes  that  there  are  three  bodies  whose 
strength  lies  in  their  corporate  cohesion,  the  Jews,  the  Jesuits,  and  the 
Nobility. 

1.  33.  The  strong  struggle,  &c.  See  Chalmer's  Bridgewater  Treatise, 
Chapter  on  '  The  Affections  which  conduce  to  the  well-being  of  Society.' 

P.  164,  1.  5.  civil  order.  A  double  meaning  perhaps  here  flashed  through 
Burke's  mind — '  order '  signifying  an  architectural  combination,  as  well  as 
a  state  of  political  regulation. 

Corinthian  capital.  The  Corinthian  is  the  most  graceful  and  ornamental 
of  the  orders  of  architecture. 

1.  6.  Omnes  boni,  &c.     Cic.  pro  P.  Sextio,  ix.  21. 


368 


NOTES. 


1.  II.  giving  a  body  to  opinion,  &c.  Whether  the  system  of  such  an 
institution  ought  not  to  be  revised,  in  a  totally  different  state  of  society,  is 
of  course,  another  question.  '  C'est  une  terrible  chose  que  la  Qualitc,'  says 
Pascal — '  elle  donne  a  un  enfant  qui  vient  de  naitre  une  consideration  que 
n'obtiendraient  pas  cinquante  ans  de  travaux  et  de  virtus.'  Burke  says 
nothing  of  the  tendencj',  inherent  in  descended  nobility,  to  sink  below  the 
level  of  its  source.     Young,  Sat.  I : 

'  Men  should  press  forward  in  fame's  glorious  chase ; 
Nobles  look  backward,  and  so  lose  the  race.' 

1.  24.  It  was  with  the  same  satisfaction,  &c.  Throughout  these  pages 
Burke  purposely  confounds  two  distinct  questions.  *  Mr.  Burke  has 
grounded  his  eloquent  apology  purely  on  their  (the  clergy)  individual  and 
moral  character.  This,  however,  is  totally  irrelative  to  the  question ;  for 
we  are  not  discussing  what  place  they  ought  to  occupy  in  society  as 
individuals,  but  as  a  body.  We  are  not  considering  the  demerit  of  citizens 
whom  it  is  fit  to  punish,  but  the  spirit  of  a  body  which  it  is  politic  to 
dissolve.  We  are  not  contending  that  the  Nobility  and  Clergy  were  in 
their  private  capacity  bad  citizens,  but  that  they  were  members  of  corpora- 
tions which  could  not  be  preserved  with  security  to  civil  freedom.* — 
Mackintosh. 

P.  166,  1.  10.  ivithout  care  it  may  he  used,  &c.  History  ought  not  to  be 
written  without  a  strong  moral  bias.  Burke  elsewhere  censures  the  cold 
manner  of  Tacitus  and  Machiavelli  in  narrating  crime  and  oppression. 
Macaulay  is  in  this  respect  a  good  model. 

1,  23.  troublous  storms,  &c. 

'  Long  were  to  tell  the  troublous  storms  that  toss 
The  private  state,  and  make  the  life  unsweef.' 

Spenser,  Faery  Queene,  Book  ii.  c.  7>  st.  14, 

1.  25.  Religion,  &c.,  the  pretexts.  '  If  men  would  say  they  took  up  arms 
for  anything  but  religion,  they  might  be  beaten  out  of  it  by  reason ;  out  of 
that  they  never  can,  for  they  will  not  believe  you  whatever  you  say.  The 
very  arcanum  of  pretending  religion  in  all  wars  is,  that  something  may  be 
found  out  in  which  all  men  may  have  interest.  In  this  the  groom  has  as 
much  interest  as  the  lord.  Were  it  for  lands,  one  has  a  thousand  acres,  and 
the  other  but  one ;  he  would  not  venture  so  far,  as  he  that  has  a  thousand. 
But  religion  is  equal  to  both.  Had  all  men  land  alike,  by  a  lex  agraria, 
then  all  men  would  say  they  fought  for  land.' — Selden,  Table-talk. 

P.  167,  1.  8.   Wise  men  will  apply,  &c.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  8  seqq. 

P.  169,  1.  26.  If  your  clergy,  &c.  One  of  those  passages  so  common  in 
Burke,  which  strike  by  their  very  temperance,  and  arrest  attention  by  their 
mild  and  tolerant  spirit. 

1.  34.   through  all  their  divisions.     Not  of  rank,  but  of  sect  and  country. 

P.  170,  1.  8.  I  must  hear  with  infirmities,  &c.  Notice  the  epigram,  which 
appears  also  in  Burke's  Tracts  on  the  Popery  Laws.  '  The  law  punishes 
delinquents,   not  because  they  are  not  good  men,   but  because  they  are 


NOTES.  369 

intolerably  wicked.     It  does  bear,  and  must,  with  the  vices  and  the  follies  of 
men,  until  they  actually  strike  at  the  root  of  order.' 

1.  30.  rigidly  screwing  up  right  into  wrong. 

'  In  vain  thy  reason  finer  webs  shall  draw, 
Entangle  justice  in  her  net  of  law. 
And  right,  toO  rigid,  hafden  into  wrong.' 

Pope,  Essay  on  Man,  iii.  191. 

P.  171,1.  I.  ambition  0/ intellectual  sovereignty,  &c.  Burke  clearly  has 
in  mind  as  a  secondary  object  the  Revolutionists  at  whom  the  whole  work 
is  levelled.  Their  enthusiasm  resembled  in  a  high  degree  that  of  the  Pro- 
testant Reformers.  Burke  afterwards  put  this  forward  more  clearly,  in 
showing  that  the  Revolution  vvas  one  of  speculative  dogma,  and  that  the 
war  against  it  was  one  against  that  most  formidable  of  opponent  forces,  an 
armed  doctrine. 

1.  12.  two  great  parties.     Catholic  and  Protestant. 

1.  22,  When  my  occasions,  &c.  Burke  speaks  of  nearly  twenty  years 
before.  He  refers  to  the  subject  in  his  '  Remarks  on  the  Policy  of  the 
Allies.'  It  may  be  said  that  the  prevalence  of  freethinking  did  no  credit  to 
the  clergy,  and  that  the  emigrant  nobility  were  equally  followers  of  the 
philosophers.  '  The  atheism  of  the  new  system,  as  opposed  to  the  piety  of 
the  old,  is  one  of  the  weakest  arguments  I  have  yet  heard  in  favour  of  this 
political  crusade,' — Sheridan,  Speech  on  the  Address  on  the  War  with  France, 
Feb.  12,  1793. 

P.  172,  1.  20.  provincial  town.     Auxerre, 

I.  21.  the  bishop.  M.  de  Cice,  under  whose  protection  young  Burke 
lived  for  some  time  at  Auxerre.  When  the  bishop  came  an  impoverished 
and  aged  emigrant  to  England,  the  Burkes  were  able  to  requite  his  kind- 
ness. 

I.  22.  three  clergymen.  One  of  whom  seems  to  have  been  the  Abbe 
Vaullier.     Correspondence,  vol.  i.  p.  426. 

1.  29.  Abbe  Moratigis.  Dupout  spells  the  name,  in  his  translation, 
•  Monrangies.' 

P.  173,  1.  16.  an  hundred  and  twenty  Bishops,  The  exact  number  of 
Archbishops  and  Bishops  was  131,  of  whom  forty-eight  had  seats  in  the 
Assembly.  The  Assembly  reduced  them  to  eighty-three  (assigning  one  to 
each  department),  which  is  the  number  now  in  existence. 

1.  20.  eminent  depravity.  Such  examples  may  have  been  rare,  but  they 
Were  brought  prominently  into  notice,  by  their  existence  in  the  midst  of  the 
society  of  Paris.  Clermont,  the  Abbe  of  St.  Germain  des  Prds,  in  the  pre- 
ceding generation,  was  a  notorious  instance.  He  enjoyed  2000  benefices, 
■which  he  made  a  practice  of  selling.  He  devoted  his  revenues  among  other 
objects  to  the  education  of  danseuses.  Talleyrand  was  an  obvious  contem- 
porary instance, 

P.  174,  1.  II,  />e«s«o«ary  =  stipendiary,  the  salaries  of  church  officials 
being  made  charges  on  the  nation. 

VOL.   II.  B  b 


370  NOTES. 

1.  17.  nothing  of  science  or  erudition.  Certainly  the  Galilean  church  has 
shown  nothing  since  to  compare  with  the  time  of  Louis  XV. 

1.  33.  ascertained  =  fixed, 

P.  175,  I.  8.  intended  only  to  be  temporary.  It  was  but  temporary,  but  it 
is  too  much  to  say  that  it  was  intended  to  be  so. 

1.  22.  enlightened  self-interest.  An  idea  borrowed,  like  many  others,  from 
the  English  philosophers,  but  carried  out  to  its  consequences  by  the  French, 
especially  by  Helvetius. 

1.  27.  Civic  education.  See  the  ideas  on  Public  Education  at  the  end  of 
the  work  of  Helvetius  '  De  I'Esprit.' 

1.  32.  principle  of  popular  election.  Burke  evidently  has  in  mind  the 
discussion  of  the  question  by  Dr.  Johnson  in  his  Tract  on  Lay  Patronage  : 
'  But  it  is  evident  that,  as  in  all  other  popular  elections,  there  will  be  a 
contrariety  of  judgment,  and  acrimony  of  passion ;  a  parish,  upon  every 
vacancy,  would  break  into  factions,  and  the  contest  for  the  choice  of  a 
minister  would  set  neighbours  at  variance,  and  bring  discord  into  families. 
The  minister  would  be  taught  all  the  arts  of  a  candidate,  would  flatter  some, 
and  bribe  others  .  .  .  and  it  is  hard  to  say  what  bitterness  of  malignity 
would  prevail  in  a  parish  where  these  elections  should  happen  to  be 
frequent,  and  the  enmity  of  opposition  should  be  rekindled  before  it  had 
cooled.' 

P.  176,  1.  24.  Burnet  says,  &c.     History  of  His  Own  Times,  Book  iii. 

P.  177,  1.  8.  under  the  influence  of  a  party  spirit,  &c.  The  allusion  is  in 
particular  to  Cranmer. 

1.  12.  as  they  would  with  equal  fortitude,  &c.  This  must  be  taken  with 
some  reservation.  'Toute  opinion  est  assez  forte  pour  se  faire  6pouser  au 
prix  de  la  vie,'  says  Montaigne.  Sectarian  heat  is  oftea  the  fiercer  the 
narrower  the  point  of  issue. 

\.  24.  justice  and  mercy  are  substantial  parts  of  religion.  Micah  vi.  8  : 
'What  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy, 
and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ? ' 

P.  178,  I.  1.  dogmas  of  religion — all  of  moment.  Cp.  ante,  note  to 
p.  106,  1.  26.  See  especially  the  Tracts  on  the  Popery  Laws.  Perhaps  the 
judgment  of  Bacon,  acquiesced  in  by  Burke,  preferring  the  extreme  of  super- 
stition to  that  of  free-thought,  may  be  reconsidered  in  the  light  of  modern 
experience.  The  Rev.  R.  Cecil,  an  acute  and  philosophical  divine,  thought 
less  of  the  dangers  of  Infidelity  than  of  those  of  Popery.  '  Popery  debases 
and  alloys  Christianity;  but  Infidelity  is  a  furnace,  wherein  it  is  purified  and 
refined.  The  injuries  done  to  it  by  Popery  are  repaired  by  the  very  attacks 
of  Infidelity.'     Remains,  p.  136. 

1.  10.  common  cause — common  enemy.  That  of  religion  against  principled 
non  religionists.  Experience,  however,  shows  that  the  danger  has  been 
exaggerated.  Notwithstanding  the  fluctuating  prevalence  of  free-thought  in 
different  societies  in  Europe  since  the  Italian  Renaissance,  it  has  nowhere 
taken  root  in  such  a  way  as  to  threaten  the  religion  of  the  nation,  from 


NOTES.  371 

the  fact  that  it  cannot  adapt  itself  to  the  moral  needs  of  the  mass  of 
mankind.  *  Infidelity,'  says  Mr.  Cecil,  '  is  a  suicide ;  it  dies  by  its  own 
malignity;  it  is  known  and  read  0/  all  men.  No  man  was  ever  injured 
essentially  by  it,  who  was  fortified  with  a  small  portion  of  the  genuine  spirit 
of  Christianity — its  contrition  and  its  docility.' 

P.  179,  I.  7.  /  see,  in  a  country  very  near  us,  &c.  Cp.  note  to  p.  11,  1.  5. 
Burke  here  also  pretends  to  the  right  to  censure  the  unjust  domestic  policy 
of  a  neighbouring  nation. 

1.  II.  one  0/  the  greatest  of  their  own  lawyers.  I  cannot  point  to  any 
passage  in  the  works  of  Domat,  in  which  the  second  thesis,  here  attributed 
to  him  (1. 12),  is  maintained.  Burke  was  apparently  quoting  from  memory. 
Often  as  he  makes  verbal  mistakes,  it  is  rarely  that  he  makes  material  ones. 
Here,  however,  seems  to  be  a  material  error  of  memory.  The  doctrine  of 
Domat  is  that  the  postulates  of  society  are  divisible  into  (i)  Laws  immutable, 
(2)  Laws  arbitrary.  He  refers  the  principle  of  prescription  to  the  first,  the 
ascertainment  of  its  limits  to  the  second.  Civil  Law  in  its  Natural  Order, 
bk.  iii.  tit.  7,  sec.  4.  Burke  was  perhaps  thinking  of  Cicero,  who  repeats 
the  ordinary  notions  as  to  the  end  of  society  being  security  of  property: 
'  Hanc  ob  causam  maxirae,  ut  sua  tenerent,  respublicae  civitatesque  consti- 
tBtae  sunt.'     De  Off.  lib.  IL  c.  21,  sec.  73  (see  also  c.  23). 

1.  25.  If  prescription  be  once  shaken,  &c.  Burke's  fears  were  need- 
less. The  principle  was  never  shaken,  nor  has  it  ever  been  seriously  threat- 
ened. 

P.  180,  1.  29.  Anabaptists  of  Munster.  Originally  organised  in  the 
Netherlands,  these  fanatics  were  admitted  by  the  citizens  of  Miinster  after 
the  expulsion  of  their  bishop.  Miinster  saw  the  community  of  goods  and 
wives  carried  out,  and  a  tailor  who  took  to  himself  seventeen  wives,  pro- 
claimed King  of  the  Universe. 

P.  181,  1.  2.  just  cause  of  alarm.  The  policy  of  Luther,  which  steadily 
maintained  the  cause  of  the  Reformation  free  from  political  revolutions,  kept 
them  in  isolation, 

P.  182,  1.  2.  best  governed.  Regarded  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
bourgeois  oligarchy,  not  of  the  peasant. 

1.  13.  standards  consecrated,  &c.  Two  of  the  members  of  the  Patriotic 
Society  at  Nantes  had  been  despatched  to  the  Revolution  Society,  to  deliver 
to  them  the  picture  of  a  banner  used  in  the  festival  of  the  former  Society  in 
the  month  of  August,  bearing  the  motto  *  Facte  Universel,'  and  a  representa- 
tion of  the  flags  of  England  and  France  bound  together  with  a  ribbon  on 
which  was  written  :  '  A  I'union  de  la  France  et  d'Angleterre.'  At  the 
bottom  was  written,  'To  the  Revolution  Society  in  London.'  The  mes- 
sengers were  respectfully  received  and  entertained  by  the  committee  of 
the  society.  These  facts  were  submitted  to  the  society  in  the  report  of  the 
committee  presented  at  the  meeting  of  Nov.  4,  1790. 

1.  27.  expedient  to  make  war  upon  them.     Anticipating  the  policy  after- 
wards so  strenuously  advocated  by  Burke. 
B  b  2 


372  NOTES. 

P.  183,  1.  2  7.  general  eartTiqualte  in  the  political  world.  Cp.  ante  note 
to  p.  67,  1.  34.     Burke  almost  repeats  the  vaticinations  of  Hartley. 

1.  28.  confederacies  and  correspondences.  It  would  be  too  long  to  re- 
capitulate the  unimportant  history  of  the  secret  society  of  the  Illuminati, 
and  of  the  exaggerated  panic  which  the  detection  of  it  produced.  The 
Illuminati,  no  small  body,  and  composed  of  members  of  some  standing 
in  society,  arose  in  Bavaria,  under  Dr.  Adam  (Spartacus)  Weishaupt  and 
Baron  (Philon)  Knigge.  Their  tenets  were  a  political  version  of  the 
harmless  social  amusement  of  Freemasonry,  not  ill-adapted  to  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  and  possessing,  except  for  themselves,  no  real  significance.  They 
were  betrayed  by  four  malcontents  for  infringing  the  Electoral  decree  of 
1 781  against  secret  societies,  which  was  prompted  by  the  same  suspicion 
which  still  prohibits  Roman  Catholics  from  being  members  of  similar 
fraternities.  Weishaupt  was  deprived  of  his  Professorship  of  Law  at  Ingold- 
stadt,  and  the  Lodges  of  the  Illtiminaten-Orden  were  closed  in  1785.  The 
best  account  of  the  Illuminati  and  their  constitution,  doctrines,  and  cere- 
monies, is  to  be  found  in  the  Abb4  Barruel's  Memoires  pour  servir  a  I'histoire 
de  Jacobinisme,  Part  3.  Many  books  were  published  to  expose  the  supposed 
conspiracy,  among  which  that  first  mentioned  by  Burke  was  the  first.  The 
title  is :  '  Einige  Originalschriften  des  Illuminatenordens,  welche  bey  dem 
gewesenem  Regierungsrath  Zwack,  durch  vorgenommene  Hausvisitation 
zu  Landshut  den  11  und  12  Octob.  1786,  vorgefunden  worden.'  See  also 
in  English,  Robinson's  '  Proofs  of  a  Conspiracy  formed  by  Freemasons,  &c., 
against  all  the  Religions  and  all  the  Governments  of  Europe.'  The  ground- 
lessness of  the  panic  was  shown  by  Mounier,  *De  I'influence  attribuee  aux 
ph'losophes,  aux  francs-mayons  et  aux  illumines  sur  la  Royaume  de  France,' 
Tiibingen  1801. 

P.  184, 1.13.  Justice  .  .  .  the  great  standing  policy.  A  good  adaptation 
of  the  not  very  lofty  maxim  that  '  Honesty  is  the  best  policy.' 

1.  16.  Wkett  men  are  encouraged,  &c.  The  abstract  principle  is  admitted 
by  Mackintosh,  with  a  just  censure  on  its  false  application;  'The  State 
is  the  proprietor  of  the  Church  Revenues,  but  its  faith,  it  may  be  said, 
is  pledged  to  those  who  have  entered  into  the  Church,  for  the  continuance 
of  those  incomes,  for  which  they  have  abandoned  all  other  pursuits.  The 
right  of  the  State  to  arrange  at  its  pleasure  the  revenues  of  any  future  priests 
may  be  confessed,  while  a  doubt  may  be  entertained  whether  it  is  competent 
to  change  the  fortune  of  those  to  whom  it  has  promised  a  certain  income 
for  life.  But  these  distinct  subjects  have  been  confounded,  that  sympathy 
with  suffering  individuals  might  influence  opinion  in  a  general  question — 
that  feeling  for  the  degradation  of  the  hierarchy  might  supply  the  place  of 
argument  to  establish  the  property  of  the  Church.' 

P.  185,  1.  14.  such  as  sophisters  represent  it,  i.  e.  as  a  case  of  leaving  an 
abuse  to  grow  and  flourish,  or  of  cutting  it  up  by  the  roots.  The  •  middle ' 
spoken  of  by  Burke  would  be  to  trim  its  exuberances,  and  to  graft  better 
scions  upon  it. 


NOTES. 


373 


1.  l8.  Spartam  nactus  es ;  hanc  exorna.  The  version  of  Erasmus  (Adag, 
2501)  of  the  quotation,  familiar  in  Roman  Literature,  of  the  first  of  two 
lines  of  Euripides,  preserved  by  Stobaeus : 

'S.-napTTjv  fKaxes,  KdvrjV  Kofffiti' 
las  dt  M.VKrjvas  ■^/j.fis  iSia. 
They  are  from  the  Telephus  (Dind.  Frag.  695),  and  are  apparently  the 
words  of  Agamemnon  to  Menelaus.  See  Cic.  Ep.  Att.  I.  20,  IV.  6,  and 
Plut.  Xlfpi  rfis  (vOvfjiias.  The  passage  is  mistranslated  by  Erasmus,  and  the 
wrong  meaning  is  kept  up  in  Burke's  allusion.  Koa/xeiv  means  to  rule,  not 
to  improve  or  decorate.  The  original  is  equivalent  to  '  Mind  your  own 
business.' 

P.  186,  1.  3.  purchase  =  leverage. 

1.  16.  The  winds  blow.  Sec,  St.  John,  iii.  8.  Burke  alludes  to  the  case  of 
the  sailor,  who  cannot  control  the  motive  forces  on  which  he  depends,  and 
means  that  the  politician  must  similarly  regard  his  motive  power  and  material 
as  produced  by  some  force  out  of  his  control. 

P.  187,  1.  3.  steam  .  .  .  electricity.  The  forecast  in  these  lines,  written 
long  before  steam  was  successfully  applied  to  navigation,  is  most  remarkable. 
Electricity  had  been  discovered  by  the  English  philosopher  Gilbert  two 
centuries  before,  but  was  as  yet  unapplied  to  any  practical  purpose. 

1.  27.  You  derive  benefits,  &c.  Burke  alludes  to  the  Passions,  as  described 
by  his  favourite  moralist : 

'  The  surest  virtues  thus  from  passions  shoot, 
Wild  nature's  vigour  working  at  the  root.' 

Essay  on  Man,  II.  183. 
Pope  proceeds  to  derive  all  the  virtues  from  the  two  sources  of  pride  and 
shame. 

P.  188,  I.  1.  Superstition  is  the  religion,  &c.  So  Lord  Chesterfield  in  the 
'  World ' :  '  Ceremony  is  the  superstition  of  good-breeding,  as  well  as  of 
religion ;  but  yet,  being  an  outwork  of  both,  should  not  be  absolutely 
demolished.' 

1.  10.  Munera  Terrce.  The  Homeric  expression  used  by  Horace,  Bk.  II, 
Ode  14,  1.  10,  to  express  the  conditions  of  mortal  existence.  Burke  means 
by  munera  terrce  the  mundane  as  opposed  to  the  imperishable  elements  of 
life. 

1.  12.  Wisdom  is  not  the  most  severe  corrector  of  folly.  They  are  the 
rival  follies,  &c.     Cp.  Young,  Satire  II : 

'  He  scorns  Florelio,  and  Florello  him  ; 
This  hates  the  filthy  creature,  that  the  prim : 
Thus  in  each  other  both  these  fools  despise 
Their  own  dear  selves,  with  undiscerning  eyes ; 
Their  methods  various,  but  alike  their  aim, 
The  sloven  and  the  fopling  are  the  same. 
Ye  Whigs  and  Tories  I  thus  it  fares  with  you. 
When  party-rage  too  warmly  you  pursue ; 


374  NOTES. 

Then  both  club  nonsense  and  impetuous  pride. 
And  folly  joins  whom  sentiments  divide. 
You  vent  your  spleen,  as  monkies  when  they  pass 
Scratch  at  the  mimic  monkey  in  the  glass, 
While  both  are  one ;  and  henceforth  be  it  known, 
Fools  of  both  sides  shall  stand  for  fools  alone.' 
Mackintosh,    alluding    apparently    to    this    passage    of  Burke,  agrees  with 
Montesquieu  that  under  bad  governments  one  abuse  often  limits  another. 
'  But  when  the  abuse  is  destroyed,  why  preserve  the  remedial  evil  ?     Super- 
stition certainly  alleviates  the  despotisrn  of  Turkey;  but  if  a  rational  govern- 
ment could  be  erected  in  that  empire,  it  might  with  confidence  disclaim  the 
aid  of  the  Koran,  and  despise  the  remonstrances  of  the  Mufti.' 

P.  189,  1.  4.  In  every  prosperous  community,  &c.  The  well-known  doc- 
trines of  the  French  economists  of  the  physiocratic  school,  popularised  some 
years  before  by  Adam  Smith.  The  arguments  here  based  on  them  by  Burke 
will  be  differently  estimated  by  different  people.  They  have  no  immediate 
bearing  on  the  main  point  of  the  work,  and  certainly  are  opposed  to, 
and  form  a  standing  censure  upon,  the  deliberate  policy  of  England  at 
the  Reformation. 

P.  190,  1.  I.  as  usefully  employed,  Sec.  A  surprising  turn  is  given  to  the 
argument.  Burke  compares  the  monastery  and  the  monks  with  the  factory 
and  its  then  overtasked  and  degraded  '  hands.'  Public  attention  was  just 
becoming  attracted  to  the  condition  of  the  factory  workers,  and  in  1802  the 
first  Sir  Robert  Peel  succeeded  in  passing  the  first  of  the  F'actory  Acts. 

P.  192,  1.  II.  whether  sole,  Sec.  Tie  phrase  is  technical.  A  bishop  is 
an  example  of  a  '  corporation  sole.* 

1.12.  susceptible  of  a  public  direction,  &c.  This  was  done,  in  a  remark- 
ab'e  way,  at  the  disestablishment  of  the  Alien  Priories  by  Henry  V,  when 
their  revenues  were  largely  applied  to  purposes  of  education.  It  was  also 
done  to  a  smaller  extent  at  the  English  Reformation.  The  Church  and 
Education,  however,  on  this  occasion,  were  benefited  to  a  less  degree  than 
the  nobility. 

1.  20.  commendatory  abbots.  Those  who  held  inferior  benefices  in  com- 
mendam,  by  way  of  plurality,  an  abuse  which  grew  up  with  many  others  out 
of  the  claims  of  the  Holy  See  in  the  twelfth  century.  Cp.  note  to  p.  173, 
1.  20. 

1.  22.  Can  any  philosophic  spoiler,  &c.  Bishop  Berkeley,  Guizot,  and 
Dr.  Arnold  have  brought  forward  the  substance  of  this  excellent  argument, 
which  rests  on  the  popular  and  accessible  nature  of  Church  preferment. 

P.  193,  1.  20.  Here  commences  the  Second  Part  of  the  work,  which 
seems  to  have  been  resumed  after  an  interval  of  some  months,  corresponding 
with  the  Parliamentary  Session  of  1790.  Early  in  the  Session,  several 
liberal  measures  were  introduced  ;  but  thwarteJ  by  the  consideration  of  the 
prevalence  of  Jacobinism,  Fox's  Resolution  in  favour  of  the  Dissenters, 
against  the  Test  and  Corporation  Acts,  was  opposed  by  Burke,  who  cited 


NOTES,  375 

passages  from  Price  and  Priestley,  and  proved  that  the  dissenters  cared  not 
'the  nip  of  a  straw'  for  the  repeal  of  these  Ads  (which  he  said  he  would 
have  advocated  ten  years  ago),  but  that  their  open  object  was  the  abolition 
of  Tithes,  and  State  Public  Worship.  Hood  was  also  defeated  in  his  motion 
for  a  Parliamentary  Reform  Bill. 

P.  194,  1.  7-  ^  have  taken  a  review,  &c,  Burke  proceeds  to  criticise  the 
positive  work  of  the  Assembly,  and  in  the  first  place,  after  some  general 
remarks,  to  deal  with  the  nature  of  the  bodies  into  which  the  citizens  were 
to  be  formed  for  the  discharge  of  their  political  functions  (p.  202).  '  In 
this  important  part  of  the  subject,'  says  Mackintosh,  '  Mr.  Burke  has  com- 
mitted some  fundamental  errors.  It  is  more  amply,  more  dexterously,  and 
more  correctly  treated  by  M.  de  Calonne,  of  whose  work  this  discussion 
forms  the  most  interesting  part.' 

1.  25.  they  have  assumed  another,  &c.  As  the  Long  Parliament  did  in 
England,  and  as  the  present  Assembly  (1874)  have  done  in  France.  Such 
assumptions  are,  under  justifying  circumstances,  in  the  strictest  sense  political 
necessities.     Cp.  next  page,  1.  10. 

■^  1.  32.  TTie  most  considerable  of  their  acts,  &c.  This  introduces  casually 
the  interesting  question  of  the  competence  of  majorities,  which  Burke  so 
philosophically  considers  in  connexion  with  the  doctrine  of  National 
Aristocracy,  in  the  Appeal  from  the  New  to  the  Old  Whigs.  He  argues 
that  (l)  an  incorporation  produced  by  unanimity,  and  (2)  an  unanimous 
agreement,  that  the  act  of  a  mere  majority,  say  of  one,  shall  pass  as  the  act 
of  the  whole,  are  necessary  to  give  authority  to  majorities.  Nature,  out  of 
civil  society,  knows  nothing  of  such  a  '  constructive  whole : '  and  in  many 
cases,  as  in  an  English  jury,  and  formerly  in  a  Polish  national  council, 
absolute  unanimity  was  required.     '  This  mode  of  decision  (by  majorities), 

•  where  wills  may  be  so  nearly  equal,  where,  according  to  circumstances,  the 
smaller  number  may  be  the  stronger  force,  and  where  apparent  reason  may 
be  all  upon  one  side,  and  on  the  other  little  less  than  impetuous  appetite — all 
this  must  be  the  result  of  a  very  particular  and  special  convention,  confirmed 
afterwards  by  long  habits  of  obedience,  by  a  sort  of  discipline  in  society, 
and  by  a  strong  hand,  vested  with  stationary,  permanent  power,  to  enforce 
this  sort  of  constructive  general  will.' 

P.  195,  1.  19.  To  make  a  revolution,  &c.  Burke  did  not  know  that  the 
Revolution  had  been  foreseen  and  demanded,  ever  since  the  middle  of  the 
century.  The  failures  of  Turgot  stimulated  expectation ;  but  reformers 
had  for  some  years  been  now  dejected  and  weary  of  waiting.  '  Men  no 
longer,'  says  Michelet,  '  believed  in  its  near  approach.  Far  from  Mont 
Blanc,  you  see  it;  when  at  its  foot* you  see  it  no  more.'  Mably,  in  I784> 
thougVit  public  spirit  too  weak  to  bring  it  about.  No  reasons  for  a  revolu- 
tion were  ever  asked  in  France ;  the  only  question  was,  who  ought  to  suffer 
by  that  which  was  inevitable. 

P.  196,  1.  5.  a  pleader,  i.e.  not  a  speaker,  but  one  who  draws  the  pleas, 
or  formal  documents  used  in  an  action  at  law,  according  to  set  precedents. 


37<5  NOTES. 

1.  31.  eloquence  in  their  speeches.  There  was  plenty  effluent  speaking, 
but  more  of  dismal  lecturing,  in  the  Assembly.  Set  speeches  were  the 
fashion.  Mirabeau  is  said  on  more  than  one  occasion  to  have  delivered 
speeches  taken  entirely  from  those  of  Burke. 

1.  33.  eloquence  may  exist,  &c.  The  well-known  sentence  of  Sallust  on 
Catiline  :  '  Satis  eloquentiae  ;  sapientise  parum.' 

P.   197,  1.  3.    no    ordinary    men.     Burke    elsewhere    compliments    the 
vigilance,  ingenuity,  and  activity  of  the  Jacobins. 
1.  20.  Pater  ipse  colendi,  &c.    Virg.  Georg.  i.  121. 
P.  198, 1.  I.    The  difficulties,  &c.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  106,  1.  32. 
1.  II.  Your  mob.     '  Your'  is  expletive. 

1.  13.  Rage  and  phrenzy  will  pull  down,  8cc.  So  in  Preface  to  Motion, 
June  14,  1784!  '  Its  demolition  (an  independent  House  of  Commons)  was 
accomplished  in  a  moment ;  and  it  was  the  work  of  ordinary  hands.  But  to 
construct,  is  a  matter  of  skill :  to  demolish,  force  and  fury  are  sufficient.' 
The  tendencies  of  the  age  often  prompted  similar  warnings.  '  A  fool  or  a 
madman,  with  a  farthing  candle,  may  cause  a  conflagration  in  a  city  that  the 
wisest  of  its  inhabitants  may  be  unable  to  extinguish.'  S.  Jenyns,  Reflec- 
tions. 

1.  15.  TTie  errors.  Sec.  This  paragraph  ;s  in  Burke's  most  striking  tone, 
that  of  an  experienced  political  philosopher,  contemptuously  exposing  the 
shallowness  of  the  sciolist. 

1.  20.  loves  sloth  and  hates  quiet.  The  epigram  belongs  to  Tacitus, 
Germ.  15  :  '  Mira  diversitate  naturae,  cum  iidem  homines  sic  ament  inertiam 
et  oderint  quietem.' 

P.  199,  1.  4.  expatiate.  In  the  now  almost  disused  sense  =  roam  at  will. 
Milton,  Par.  Lost,  I.  774.     So  Pope, Essay  on  Man: 

'  The  soul,  uneasy,  and  confined  from  home, 
Rests,  and  expatiates,  in  a  life  to  come.' 
1.  31.  the   true    lawgiver,  &c.     Aimed    at    the    cold  and  mathematical 
Sieyes. 

1.  32.  to  love  and  respect  his  kind,  and  to  fear  himself.  Echoed  by 
Shelley,  Hymn  to  Intellectual  Beauty : 

'  Whom,  Spirit  fair,  thy  spells  did  bind 
To  fear  himself,  and  love  all  human  kind.* 
P.  200,  1.  2.  Political   arrangement,   &c.      Burke  here  brings   to  the 
question    the    results    of   his    personal    experience.      These    pages    contain 
fundamental  axioms  of  practical  politics. 

1.  10.    have  never  yet  seen,  &c.      So    South:    'God  has  filled  no  man's 
intellectuals  so  full  but  he  has  left  some  vacuities  in  them  that  may  send 
him  sometimes    for  supplies  to  minds    of  a  lower  pitch.  .  .  .     Nay,    the 
greatest  abilities  are  sometimes  beholding  to  the  very  meanest.' 
1,  35,  composition,  i.e.  combined  multiplicity. 

1.  29.  the  work  itself  requires  the  aid  of  more  minds  than  one  age  can 
furnish.    The  common  notion  being  that  we  should  complete  something 


NOTES.  377 

for  which  posterity  will  thank  our  foresight.  We  do  better  by  so  arranging 
our  labours,  that  posterity  may  enter  into  them,  and  enlarge  and  complete 
what  we  have  attained, 

1.  34.  sonie  of  the  philosophers.  The  Schoolmen.  '  Plastic  nature  '  or 
•  plastic  virtue  '  is  a  phrase  intended  by  them  to  express  the  generative  or 
vegetative  facuhy. 

P.  201,  1.  15.  talee  their  opinions.  See,  Chiefly  the  comedians,  e.  g.  the 
ridicule  of  Moliere  against  medicine,  of  Steele  against  law. 

1.  23.  those  who  are  habitually  employed,  &c.  '  By  continually  looking 
upwards,  our  minds  will  themselves  grow  upwards ;  and,  as  a  man  by 
indulging  in  habits  of  scorn  and  contempt  for  others  is  sure  to  descend  to 
the  level  of  what  he  despises,  so  the  opposite  habits  of  admiration  and  en- 
thusiastic reverence  for  excellence  impart  to  ourselves  a  portion  of  the  quahties 
which  we  admire.'  Dr.  Arnold,  Preface  to  Poetry  of  Common  Life. 
1.  31.  <:o7w/i/*x/o«a/ =  constitutional,  as  at  p.  293,  1.  18. 
1.  33.  quadrimanous  activity,  i.e.  monkey-like,  wantonly  destructive. 
Helvetius  had  remarked,  in  his  peculiar  way,  on  the  monkey-like  necessity 
for  perpetual  activity  in  children,  even  after  their  wants  are  satisfied.  '  Les 
singes  ne  sont  pas  susceptible  de  rennui  qu'on  doit  regarder  comme  un  des 
principes  de  la  perfectibilite  de  1' esprit  humain,' 

1.  34.  paradoxes  of  eloquent  writers.  Burke  follows  Bishop  Warburton 
in  treating  all  writers  who  had  hinted  at  revolutionary  ideas  as  mere 
paradox -mongers.  Cardan  seems  to  have  been  the  first :  after  him  comes 
Bayle,  whose  opinion  that  neither  religion  nor  civil  society  were  necessary 
to  the  human  race  is  treated  as  a  pleasant  paradox  by  Warburton,  Divine 
Legation,  vol.  i.  p.  76.  The  immediate  allusion  is  to  Rousseau,  whose 
•  misbegotten  Paradoxes  '  had  been  long  ago  exposed  by  Warburton  in  the 
2nd  Book  of  the  '  Alliance  between  Church  and  State.'  Burke  here  main- 
tains the  opinion  expressed  thirty  years  before  in  the  Annual  Register,  in 
reviewing  Rousseau's  letter  to  D'Alcmbert.  He  thought  the  paradoxes  it 
contained  were,  like  his  own  Vindication  of  Natural  Society,  intended  as 
satire.  He  charges  him  with  '  a  tendency  to  paradox,  which  is  always  the 
bane  of  solid  learning.  ...  A  satire  upon  civilized  society,  a  satire  upon 
learning,  may  make  a  tolerable  sport  for  an  ingenious  fancy ;  but  if  carried 
farther  it  can  do  no  more  (and  that  in  such  a  way  surely  is  too  much),  than 
to  unsettle  our  notions  of  right  and  wrong,  and  lead  by  degrees  to  universal 
scepticism.'  Mr.  Lecky  says  of  Rousseau,  '  He  was  one  of  those  writers  who 
are  eminently  destitute  of  the  judgment  that  enables  men  without  exaggera- 
tion to  discriminate  between  truth  and  falsehood,  and  yet  eminently  endowed 
with  that  logical  faculty  which  enables  them  to  defend  the  opinions  they 
have  embraced.  No  one  plunged  more  recklessly  into  paradox,  or  sup- 
ported those  paradoxes  with  more  consummate  skill.'  Hist,  of  Rationalism, 
vol.  ii.  p.  242. 

P.  202,  1.  7.  Cicero  ludicrously  describes  Cato,  &c.  In  the  Preface  to 
the  Paradoxa.     See  also  the  Oration  Pro  Muraena. 


37^ 


NOTES. 


1.  12.  '  pede  nudo  Catonem.'     Hor.  Ep.  i.  19.  12-14: 

'  Quid  ?  si  quis  vultu  torvo  feru?,  et  pede  nudo, 
Exiguaeque  togae  simulet  textore  Catonem, 
Virtutemne  repraesentet  nioresque  Catonis?' 
1.  e.  the  apparel  does  not  make  the  philosopher,  as  the  cowl  does  not  make 
the  monk.     '  Video  barbam  et  pallium — philosophum  nondum  video.'     The 
bearing  of  the  allusion  on  the  matter   is  more  recondite  than  is  usual  with 
Burke. 

1.  12.  Mr.  Hume  told  me,  &c,  Burke  seems  to  err  in  taking  this 
statement  of  Rousseau  to  Hume,  whatever  its  exact  purport  may  have 
been,  as  a  serious  disclaimer  of  the  ostensible  ends  of  his  writings.  If  ever 
a  man  was  the  serious  dupe  of  his  own  errors,  it  was  surely  Rousseau.  '  It 
is  not  improbable,'  says  Mackintosh,  '  that  when  rallied  on  the  eccentricity 
of  his  paradoxes,  he  might,  in  a  moment  of  gay  effusion,  have  spoken  of 
them  as  a  sort  of  fancy,  and  an  experiment  on  the  credulity  of  mankind.' 

I.  25.  /  believe,  that  were  Rousseau  alive,  &c.  This  is  likely  enough 
from  some  passages  in  his  writings.  The  following,  for  instance,  on  the 
metaphysical  reformers,  might  have  been  written  by  Burke  himself :  '  Du 
reste,  renversant,  detruisant,  foulant  aux  pieds  tout  ce  que  les  hommes 
respectent,  ils  otent  aux  affliges  la  derniere  consolation  de  leur  misere,  aux 
puissants  et  aux  riches  le  seul  frein  de  leurs  passions ;  ils  arrachent  du  fond 
des  cceurs  le  remords  du  crime,  I'espoir  de  la  vcrtu,  et  se  vantent  encore 
d'etre  les  bienfaiteurs  du  genre  humain.  Jamais,  disent  ils,  la  veriie  n'est 
nuisible  aux  hommes  ^  Je  le  crois  comme  eux;  et  c'est,  a  mon  avis,  une 
grande  preuve  que  ce  qu'ils  enseignent  n'est  pas  la  verite.' 

P.  203,  1.31.  correctives.  ,  .  .  aberrations.  The  allusion  is  to  the  use 
of  the  compass  in  navigation,  as  is  implied  in  the  next  page. 

P.  204,  1.  2.  In  them  we  often  see,  &c.  Often  repeated  by  Burke,  after 
Aristotle. 

1.  20.  like  the'r  ornamental  gardeners.  The  Jardin  Anglais,  with  its 
mounds,  shrubs,  and  winding  walks,  had  by  this  time  scarcely  become 
popular  on  the  continent,  though  the  model  of  Kent  was  not  unknown. 
The  French  mechanical  style  to  which  Burke  alludes  was  the  invention  of 
Le  Notre,  who  laid  out  the  gardens  of  Versailles. 

1.  28.  regularly  square,  &c.  Burke  errs  in  stating  that  such  a  geometrical 
division  and  subdivision  ever  took  place.  Such  plans  were  discussed,  but  all 
the  new  divisions  were  limited  by  natural  boundaries.  Burke  did  not  see 
fit  to  correct  the  error  when  pointed  out,  not  considering  it  material. 

P.  205,  1.  13.  on  the  system  of  Empedocles.  The  allusion  seems  to  be 
to  this  philosopher's  obscure  notion  of  four  successive  stages  of  generation. 
See  Ritter  and  Preller,  Hist.  Philos.  No.  1 75. 


*  The  allusion  is  to  the  maxim  of  the  Abbe  de  Fleury ;  '  Les  lumieres 
philosophiques  ne  peuvent  jamais  nuire.' 


NOTES.  379 

1. 14.  and  Btiffon.  Alluding  to  the  subordination  of  orders,  genera,  and 
species,  applied  to  the  animal  world  by  Buffoii,  e.  g.  the  order  of  carnivorous 
animals  includes  several  genera,  e.  g.  the  genus  felis,  which  includes  several 
species,  e.  g.  the  lion,  the  tiger,  and  the  cat.  The  application  of  such  a 
principle  in  politics  is  directly  contrary  to  Burke's  conception  of  a  state, 
which  regarded  the  political  division  as  lateral,  and  running  as  it  were  in 
strata  over  the  whole  extent  of  the  land. 

1.  31.  dividing  their  political  and  civil  representation  into  three  parts.  It 
is  right  to  notice  that  Mr.  Pitt,  in  arranging  the  new  representation  of 
Ireland,  in  1800,  adopted  two  of  these  bases,  those  of  population  and  of 
contribution,  considering  that  these,  taken  together,  formed  a  better  ground 
of  calculation  than  either  separately,  though  he  did  not  pretend  that  the 
result  of  the  combination  could  be  considered  accurate. 

P.  206,  1.  3.  third  for  her  dower.  Alluding  to  the  legal  dower,  of  a  third 
of  the  husband's  real  property,  to  which  a  widow  is  entitled. 

1.  15.  But  soft,  by  regtdar  degrees,  not  yet  (by  regular  approach).  Pope, 
Moral  Essays,  Ep.  iv.  1.  129. 

P.  210,  I,  4.  as  historians  represent  Servius  Tullius,  &c.  Burke  had 
probably  read  the  sceptical  comments  of  Beaufort,  which  were  developed  by 
Niebuhr,  on  the  early  Roman  History. 

P.  215,  1.  25.  Hominem  non  sapiunt.     Martial,  x.  4.  10  : 
'hominem  pagina  nostra  sapit.' 

P.  216,  1.  9.  such  governments  do  exist,  &c.  Burke  alludes  to  America, 
Holland,  and  Switzerland. 

1.  12.  the  effect  of  necessity.  In  escaping  in  each  case  from  external 
tyranny. 

1.  19.  treat  France  exactly  like  a  country  of  conquest.  This  bold  and 
original  observation  is  true  enough.  A  conquest  had  been  achieved,  and  it 
was  intended  to  be  consolidated. 

P.  217, 1.  26.  fades  Hippocratica.  The  old  medical  term  for  the  appear- 
ance produced  in  the  countenance  by  phthisis,  as  described  by  Hippocrates 
— the  nostrils  sharp,  eyes  hollow,  temples  low,  tips  of  ears  contracted, 
forehead  dry  and  wrinkled,  complexion  pale  or  livid.  It  was  held  a  sure 
prognostic  of  death.     So  in  Armstrong's  Satire  '  Taste  ' : 

'Pray,  on  the  first  throng'd  evening  of  a  play 
That  wears  the  fades  Hippocratica,'  &c. 

1.  28.  the  legislators,  &c.  I  suspect  that  this  paragraph  was  written  by 
the  younger  Burke.     See  footnote,  p.  131. 

P.  218,  1.  2.  metaphysics  of  an  undergraduate.  It  must  be  noticed  that 
in  1790  this  implied  in  Oxford  (apparently  alluded  to)  something  very 
different  to  what  it  does  at  the  present  time.  See  an  amusing  account  of 
the  progress  formerly  necessary  to  a  degree  :  '  doing  generals,'  '  answering 
under-bachelor,'  '  determining,'  '  doing  quodlibets,'  '  doing  austins,'  &c.,  in 
Vicesimus  Knox's  Essays,  No.  77.  See  also  a  metaphysical  Parody,  by 
Person,  in  Watson's  Life  of  Porson. 


38o 


NOTES. 


1.  7-  l^^y  v/ere  sensible,  &c.  These  views  are  summed  up  in  the  opinions 
ofAristotle. 

P.  219,  1.  15.  troll  of  their  categorical  table.  The  French  politicians, 
however,  set  small  store  by  the  Aristotelian  logic.  I  cannot  think  that 
Burke  would  have  penned  this  trivial  repartee. 

P.  220, 1.  5.  if  monarchy  should  ever  again,  &c.  How  accurately  these 
remarkable  presages  were  to  be  fulfilled,  was  soon  understood  under 
Bonaparte. 

P.  222,  1.  7.  a  trustee  for  the  whole,  and  not  for  the  parts.  In  its 
domestic  policy,  however,  the  unreformed  House  of  Commons  acted  like 
a  trustee  for  the  agricultural  interest. 

1.  9.  several  and  joint  securities.     Cp.  the  extract,  p.  311,  1.  2.  9. 

1.  21.  Few  trouble  their  heads,  &c.  Cp.,  however,  note  to  p.  205,  1.  31, 
ante. 

1.  23.  on  different  ideas.  Referring  rather  to  the  means  by  which 
candidates  were  returned,  than  to  the  basis  on  which  representation  was 
distributed.  Burke  always  attacked  the  corrupt  sale  and  purchase  of  the 
constituencies,  which  was  so  thoroughly  established  in  general  opinion  that 
Pitt's  Reform  Bill  was  based  on  the  principle  that  the  nation  should  buy 
from  the  boroughs  the  right  to  redistribute  the  seats. 

P.  224,  1.  7.  Limbus  Patrum.  The  border  or  outside  ground  between 
paradise  and  purgatory,  as  defined  by  Thomas  Aquinas.  Cp.  Mr.  Hales'  note 
to  Milton's  Areopagitica,  p.  13,  1.  6. 

1.  II.  like  chimney-sweepers.  Chimneys  were  cleansed  by  sending 
a  child  up  them.  As  the  child  grew  to  be  a  man,  of  course  he  became 
disqualified  for  his  trade.  See  Sydney  Smith's  Essay  on  the  subject, 
1819. 

P.  226,  1.  32.  They  have  reversed  the  Latonian  kindness,  &c.  Oras  et 
littora  circum.  Alluding  to  the  Greek  legend  that  Delos  was  a  wandering 
island,  fixed  in  its  place  at  the  instant  when  Latona  gave  birth  to  Apollo  and 
Diana.     Virg.  Aen.  iii.  75  : 

•Quam  pius  arcitenens,  oras  et  littora  circum 
Errantem,  Gyaro  celsa  Myconoque  revinxit.' 

P.  227,  1.  6.  holy  bishop.     Talleyrand,  Bishop  of  Autun. 

1.  9.  not  a  good,  &c.  Burke,  however,  was  certainly  both  a  good  and  an 
old  farmer.  He  was  devoted  to  agriculture,  and  farmed  his  own  lands  at 
Beaconsfield  up  to  the  time  of  his  death. 

1.  15.  encouragement — in  the  objective  sense  =  hope. 

1.  16.  Diis  immortalibus  sero.  Burke  follows  the  track  of  Bolingbroke 
in  alluding  to  the  beautiful  sentiment  of  Cicero,  de  Senect.  vii.  25.  Death 
holding  a  handle  of  the  plough  is  an  embellishment  of  Burke's. 

1.  34.  Beatus  ille.     The  well-known  Epode  of  Horace,  with  its  humorous 
conclusion,  thus  happily  imitated  by  Somervile  (1692-1742)  : 
•  Thus  spoke  old  Gripe,  when  bottles  three 
Of  Burton  ale,  and  sea-coal  fire, 


NOTES.  38  J 

Unlock'd  his  breast;  resolved  to  be 
A  gen'rous,  honest  country  'squire. 
That  very  night  his  money  lent 
On  bond,  or  mortgage,  he  called  in, 
With  lawful  use  of  six  per  cent ; 
Next  morn — he  put  it  out  at  ten.' 

P.  228,  1.  25.  In  the  Mississippi  arid  the  South  Sea.     See  post,  p.  287. 

P.  230,  1.  32.  /a//s  =  makes  to  fall. 

P.  231,  1.  23.  Serhonian  hog.  Par.  Lost,  ii.  592.  Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  196,1.  23. 

P.  232,  1.  31.  hackled  =  cut  small.     Dutch,  kakkeleii. 

P.  233,  1.  II.  instead  of  being  all  Frenchmen,  &c.  Burke's  surmise  has 
not  been  justified.  The  French  certainly  glory  in  the  unity  implied  in  their 
national  name,  and  the  Savoyard  and  Alsatian  share  the  enthusiasm. 

1.  16.  We  begin  our  public  affections,  &c.  Cp.  ante,  p.  55,  and  vol.  5.  p. 
84,  1.  9.  There  is  here  also  an  allusion  to  the  beautiful  lines  of  Pope,  cited 
before. 

P.  234,  1.  28,  Never,  before  this  time,  &c.  I  do  not  know  whether  the 
Sfjiios  iffxaros  of  Aristotle  was  ever  realized,  but  the  idea  was  certainly 
formed  by  him. 

P.  238, 1.  26.  your  supreme  government,  &c.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  34, 1.  lO. 

P.  239, 1.  31.  attack  them  in  the  vital  parts.     Cp.  p.  15,  1,  18. 

P.  243,  1.  13.  sed  multae  urbes,  &c.     Juv.  x.  284. 

1.  14.  He  is  now  sitting,  &c.  In  October,  1790,  when  this  pamphlet  was 
published,  Necker  was  no  longer  sitting  on  the  ruins  of  the  French  monarchy, 
having  resigned  office  on  the  9th  of  September. 

P.  245,1.  15.  were  not  wholly  free,  &c.  See  this  amply  illustrated  in 
Voltaire's  amusing  '  Histoire  du  Parlement  de  Paris,'  published  in  1 769, 

1.  34.  the  vice  of  the  antient  democracies,  &c.     See  footnote,  p.  147. 

P.  246,  1.  3.  it  abated  the  respect,  &c.  The  difference  between  French 
and  English  political  sentiment  has  been  epigrammatically  stated  as  follows : 
the  French  respect  authority  and  despise  law :  the  English  respect  law  and 
despise  authority. 

P.  249,  I.  9.  on  good  appointments,  i.  e.  if  well  supplied  with  all  necessary 
equipment. 

1.  12.  wolf  by  the  ears.  The  famous  expression  of  Tiberius,  'lupum  se 
auribus  tenere/  Suet.  Tib.  25.  The  image  was  more  than  once  used  by  Burke 
with  striking  effect  in  a  Parliamentary  debate. 

1.  17.  M.  de  la  Tour  du  Pin.  He  was  a  man  of  moderate  views,  and 
strongly  attached  to  the  monarchy.  Necker  had  appointed  him  war 
minister  about  the  middle  of  1789.  He  resigned,  together  with  all  the 
rest  of  the  ministry,  except  Montmorin,  shortly  after  Burke's  book  was 
published. 

1.  32.  Addressing  himself ,  8cc.  The  allusions  to  the  extract  which  follows 
are  to  the  mutinies  of  the  regiments  of  Metz  and  Nancy.  See  Carlyle's  Hist, 
of  the  Rev.,  book  ii. 


383 


^QTES. 


P.  253, 1.  30.  comitia.  The  filiation  of  the  term  cornices  is  introduced  to 
show  what  it  involves. 

P.  256,  1.  I.  grand  compounders — shorten  the  road  to  their  degrees. 
Alluding  to  an  obsolete  practice  in  the  universities. 

1.  12.  stiff  and  peremptory.  The  expression  is  from  Browne's  Christian 
Morals. 

!•  15*  grand  climacteric.  The  sixty-third  year  (7X9  =  63)  of  human 
life. 

1.  17.  Si  isti  mihi  largiantur,  &c.  Slightly  altered  from  Cic.  de  Senect. 
xxiii.  83.  The  original  sentiment  occurs  in  a  favourite  book  of  Burke's, 
Browne's  Christian  Morals,  Part  III,  §  25,  and  was  adopted  by  Prior  as  a 
motto  for  his  poem  '  Solomon.' 

P.  260,  1.  1 6.  until  some  popular  general.  Sec.  A  similar  prediction  was 
made  by  Schiller,  who  thought  that  some  popular  general  of  the  Republic 
would  make  himself  master  not  only  of  France  but  of  a  great  part  of 
Europe.     It  was  accurately  fulfilled  in  Bonaparte. 

P.  262,  1.  29.  The  colonies  assert,  &c.  Burke's  presages  on  the  colonies 
were  accurately  fulfilled  in  the  terrible  history  of  the  Revolution  of  St. 
Domingo. 

P.  265,  1.  5.  image  and  superscription,     St.  Luke  xx.  24. 

1.  17.  un/eathered  two-legged  things.  The  famous  Greek  definition  of 
a  man,  in  the  words  used  by  Dryden  in  his  celebrated  description  of 
Achitophel. 

P.  268,  1.  20.  systasis  of  Crete,  See  an  account  of  it  in  Plutarch's 
Treatise  De  Fraterno  Amore.  The  Cretan  cities  quitted  their  internal  feuds 
and  united  for  defence  when  attacked  by  a  common  enemy.  This  was  called 
ovyKprjTi^uv,  whence  our  word  'Syncretism.' 

P.  269, 1.  1 1 .  The  revenue  of  the  state,  &c.  This  admirable  exposition 
of  the  nature  of  public  revenues,  and  their  relation  to  national  action,  should 
not  be  passed  over  as  part  of  the  merely  critical  section  of  the  work.  It 
possesses  a  real  historical  significance,  for  Pitt's  great  reforms  in  the  revenue 
were  just  coming  into  operation. 

P.  271,  1.  20.  Cedo  qui  vestram,  &c.  Naevius,  quoted  in  Cic.  de  Senect. 
c.  vi.  20.  It  is  necessary  to  refer  to  the  context :  '  Quod  si  legere  aut  audire 
voletis  externa,  maximas  respublicas  ab  adolescentibus  labefactas,  a  senibus 
sustentatas  et  restitutas  reperietis. 

'  Cedo,  qui  vestram  rempuhlicam  tantam  dmisistis  tdm  cito  t ' 
Sic  enim  percontantur,  ut  est  m  Naevii  ludo :  respondentur  et  alia,  et  haec 
in  primis : 

'  Proveniebant  ordlores  novi,  stulti,  adolescentuli' 

P.  273,  1.  22.  John  Doe,  Richard  Roe.     Cp.  vol.  i.  p.  64,  1.  33. 

1.  31.  took  an  old  huge  full-bottomed  perriwig.  See.  The  allusion  is  to 
the  offerings  of  silver  plate  made  to  Louis  XIV  by  the  court  and  city  of 
Paris  at  the  financial  crisis,  produced  by  the  long  war,  of  1 709.  See  Saint 
Simon,  M^moires,  vol.  vii.  p.  208.    '  Cet  expedient,'  says  Saint  Simon,  '  avait 


NOTES.  383 


deja  et^  propose  etrejete  par  Pontchartrain,  lorsqu'il  dtait  contrAleur-g^neral, 
qui,  devenu  chancelier,  n'y  fut  pas  plus  favorable.'  Notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  the  king  expected  every  one  to  send  their  plate,  the  list  of  donors 
amounted  to  less  than  a  hundred  names  :  and  the  result  was  far  below  the 
king's  expectation.  '  Au  bout  de  trois  mois,  le  roi  sentit  la  honte  et  la 
faiblesse  de  cette  belle  ressource,  et  avoua  qu'il  se  repentait  d'y  avoir  con- 
senti.'  Saint  Simon  confesses  that  he  sent  a  portion  only  of  his  own,  and 
concealed  the  rest. 

P.  274,  1.  4.  tried  in  my  memory  by  Louis  XV.  In  1762,  towards  the 
close  of  the  calamitous  Seven  Years'  War.  '  La  France  alors  etait  plus  mal- 
heureuse.  Toutes  les  ressources  etaient  epuisees :  presque  tons  les  citoyens, 
a  I'exemple  du  roi,  avaient  porte  leur  vaisselle  a  la  monnaie.'  Voltaire, 
Siecle  de  Louis  XV,  ch.  35. 

P.  278,    1.  8.    Mais   si  maladia,  &c.      From  the  comical  interlude  in 
Moliere's  Malade  Imaginaire,  in  which  the  examination  of  a  Bachelor  fot 
the  doctor's  degree  is  conducted  in  dog-latin.     The  candidate  has  already 
given  the  famous  answer  to  the  question,  '  Quare  opium  facit  dormire  ? ' 
'  Quia  est  in  eo  virtus  dormitiva,'  &c.      On  being  interrogated  as  to  the 
remedy  for  several  diseases  in  succession,  he  makes  the  same  answer : 
'  Clysterium  donare, 
Postea  segnare, 
Ensuita  purgare.' 
Which  is  repeated  after  the  final  question  in  the  text.     Burke  happily  com- 
pares the  ignorance  which  made   the  assignat  the  panacea  of  the  state,  to 
this  gross  barbarism  in  the  art  of  medicine. 

1.  22.  pious  and  venerable  prelate.     Bitter  irony,  on  Talleyrand. 
P,  284,  1.  19.  club  at  Dundee.     The  Dundee  '  Friends  of  Liberty,'  whose 
proceedings  acquired  some    notoriety  a   year    or  two  later.     In   1793  the 
Unitarian  minister  Palmer  was  transported  for  seven  years  for  writing  and 
publishing  a  seditious  address  bearing  the  name  of  this  society. 
P.  286,  1.  6.  Credat  who  will.     Horace,  Sat.  lib.  i.  v.  100. 
1.  31.  nuzzling  =  foWow'mg  blindly  by  the  nose.     So  Pope  : 
'  The  blessed  Benefit,  not  there  confin'd, 
Drops  to  the  third,  who  nuzzles  close  behind.' 
P.  287,  1.  5.  glimmerings  of  reason  —  solid  darkness.     Pope,  Dunciad 
iii.  226 : 

' .  .  .  a  ray  of  reason  stole 
Half  through  the  solid  darkness  of  his  soul.' 
So  Dryden,  Macflecknoe : 

'  Some  beams  of  wit  on  other  souls  may  fall. 
Strike  through,  and  make  a  lucid  interval,'  &c. 
P.  288,  1.  22.  his  atlantic  regions.     The  allusion  is  to  Bailly's  Letters  on 
the  subject  of  the  fabled  island  of  Atlantis. 

1.  23.  smitten  with  the  cold,  dry,  petrified  mace.     Par.  Lost,  x.  293: 
'  The  aggregated  Soyle 


384 


NOTES. 


Death  with  his  Mace  petrific,  cold,  and  dry, 
As  with  a  Trident  smote.' 
P.  290,  1.  16.  tontijies.    Lotteries  on  groups  of  lives,  so  called  from  their 
inventor.     They  had  been  adopted  in  England,  and  in  the  session  which  pre- 
ceded the  publication  of  this  work,  a  batch  of  them  had  been  converted  into 
ordinary  annuities. 

1.31.  all-atoning  name.     Dryden,  in  the  famous  character  of  Achitophel, 
says  that  he 

•  Assumed  a  patriot's  all-afoning  name.* 
P.  291,  1.  6.   Grand,   swelling  sentiments,   &c.     See  especially,  Lucan, 
Book  VII.     This  poet  was  excluded  from  the  collection  of  classics  edited  '  for 
the  use  of  the  Dauphin,'  on  account  of  his  tyrannicide  principles.     Corneille 
records  his  preference  of  Lucan  before  Virgil. 

I.  9.  Old  as  I  am,  &c.     Perhaps  an  allusion  to  Addison's  Cato,  Act  II : 
'You  have  not  read  mankind;  your  youth  admires 
The  throes  and  swellings  of  a  Roman  soul, 
Cato's  bold  flights,  th'  extravagance  of  virtue.* 
1.  10.  Corneille.     See  '  Cinna  '  (Clarendon  Press  Series). 
1.  14.  severe  brow,  &c.     Perhaps  a  reminiscence  of  Thompson,  'Liberty,' 
Book  III : 

'  The  passing  clouds 
That  often  hang  on  Freedom's  jealous  brow.* 
P.  294,  1.  3.  one  of  our  poets.     Addison,   in   the  celebrated  Soliloquy  of 
Cato,  Act  V.  sc.  I : 

'  Eternity  !  thou  pleasing  dreadful  Thought  1 
Through  what  Variety  of  untry'd  Being, 
Through  what  new  Scenes  and  Changes  must  we  pass !' 
1.  15.  snatches  from  his  share,  &c.     The  allusion  is  to  the  proceedings 
against  Hastings, 


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